Charon - Sulphur Seraph (2012)

Full Length, Sepulchral Voice Records
January 7th, 2012

Genre: Black/Death Metal
Region: Germany

I've found myself thanking Haxan over at Forever Cursed a lot lately.

Charon have been active since 1997 but this is their first full length, so one should expect that with all that time and huge gulfs between releases that this record would be of a high quality — and I assure you it is. Sulphur Seraph is a writhing tangled heap of blackened death metal akin to Corpsessed, Mitochondrion, and Grave Ritual.

Throughout the record you'll hear wailing and creaking bends fade in and out under the main thrashy, blackened riffs which become like a siren warning of the impending doom. Occasionally the riffs stray from the black metal formula and hit death territory, sometimes dissonant and sometimes more straight forward but always devastating. This is covered by a a storm of percussion and vocals that flail wildly through different styles: spoken and deep, beastly growls, black rasps, even a touch of brutal death metal gutturalness/squeals are touched on briefly. None of it feels out of place and only bolsters the ancient and apocalyptic mood that washes over the whole album.

Fucking great blend of oldschool and newer styles of death and black metal, a crushing debut without question. You can pick up the cd over at the label's webstore.

DOWNLOAD (Mediafire)