Sarpanitum – Blessed Be My Brothers Review

When a musical style has seen a life as long as that of death metal, it’s pretty easy to map the trends, both deep within the underground and above. Right now, the depths are dominated by a blackened, blasty, murky, and barely decipherable form that is, by its very nature, intentionally alienating. It does all it can to out-extreme the extreme, really. This is all well and good, sure, and this movement has seen a fair number of quite artistic acts (hello, Portal), but it’s also missing something; you aren’t exactly going to see people fist pumping to the big parts of a Teitanblood song the way they would to “Rapture.” Sometimes, a guy wants to hear death metal that is well out of the murk; death metal that is clean and a mite catchy; death metal that soars.

On Blessed Be My Brothers…, England’s Sarpanitum doesn’t so much soar as blast off with the power to escape Earth’s gravitational pull. Destination is unknown, but the course setting is second star to the right, and straight on until morning. Only it’s not so much the peaceful end of a Trek movie as it is that moment when Khan is quoting Herman Melville. Beautiful, poetic, and bloody.

This implication of “cosmic death metal” should come of no surprise to those with knowledge of Sarpanitum’s lineup. Guitarist and vocalist Tom Innocenti is joined by Mithras’ Leon Macey on drums and live Mithras member Tom Hyde on second guitar. Naturally, any fan of that act is going to find a ton to like here, but this also owes great debt to Steve Tucker-era Morbid Angel, and in finding a midpoint between this influence and the musicians’ natural tendencies, Sarpanitum has mined gold.

High flying, solo- and lead-ridden, reverb- and delay-drenched, keyboard-enhanced, click-drummed gold. By the time “By Virtuous Reclamation” reaches the first of what feels like about 250 insanely memorable lead motifs, it’s damn near impossible to resist the album’s infectiously melodic nature. But when the rhythm guitars do their best Trey Azagthoth impression, sliding up and down the fret board both loosely and bluntly, it becomes hard to resist the album’s neck wrecking and brutal side. In short, it’s just plain hard to resist.

The reasons are numerous and constant: The deep, demonic death growls that work to keep things (slightly) grounded. A kind of herky jerky “space metal breakdown” in “Glorification upon the Powdered Bones of the Sundered Dead” (nice Death Metal English, boys). A touch of Polish death’s forcefulness in “I Defy for I Am Free.” The closing title track masterfully owning all layers of the sound while adding an extra feeling of suspense. There is just always something widdling or blasting or noodling or crashing or pummeling or gurgling or wailing, and at an almost perfect 41 minutes, there isn’t a wasted second in sight.

Efficient but loaded, Sarpanitum has delivered a gem. Emerge from the murk and get shredded in space.

Posted by Zach Duvall

Last Rites Co-Owner; Senior Editor; Obnoxious overuser of baseball metaphors.

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