Coffins – Sinister Oath Review

Keep it simple, whether you’re stupid or not – there’s certainly something to be said for that ethos. And always, always, always keep it heavy.

The four fellows in Japan’s Coffins abide by a credo of heavy simplicity, or of simple heaviness, or however you want to spin it – it’s one of single-minded focus and steadfast dedication to their no-frills, no-bullshit death/doom. Built on a base of hard-hitting Hellhammer riff crossed with crawling filth, that formula has worked brilliantly across a quarter-century now, with six full-lengths and a slew of splits to show for it, and though I can’t say I’ve heard them all, I’ve heard enough to know with almost absolute certainty that Coffins’ catalog is a crushing one. And now, Sinister Oath follows suit, another strong example of what Coffins does and how massively excellent they truly are at doing it.

From the opening pair, the instrumental introductory track “B.T.C.D” and the savage swagger of “Spontaneous Rot,” Sinister Oath positively oozes with a melancholy malevolence, a trudging bleak heaviness, in terms of both emotion and sonics. Uchino’s guitar tone is massive, a fuzzy wall of despair atop Satoshi’s rock-solid drum patterns and Masafumi’s loping subterranean bass lines. Jun’s growl is an inhumanely low and despondent guttural, with only a few scant moments of deviation, a few higher screams in the title track or a vaguely psychedelic vocal phasing in “Chain,” but that uniform attack never gets monotonous – only adds to the album’s overall heftiness.

For further proof of that heftiness, look to the title track, which sums up Coffins’ aesthetic nicely, equal parts dirge and death, a mid-album highlight. Or to the nearly-nine-minute “Everlasting Spiral,” which spends a full two-thirds of that extended run time in instrumental territory, hopeless and sluggish, before adding Jun’s growl and picking up the energy level a bit (though still only from a nearly glacial tempo to something more like a Bolt Thrower bulldozer) for the last homeward turn.

At this point in their career, Coffins isn’t really reinventing any wheels – or anything at all, for that matter – they’re just hammering the point home with the heaviest hammer they can find. If truly crushing death / doom falls squarely into your wheelhouse, and you’re somehow not already familiar with Coffins, then Sinister Oath is a hell of a place to dive in – it’s been five years since Beyond The Circular Demise, itself a strong Coffins offering, and Sinister Oath falls straight in line, as good an example of Coffins being Coffins as anyone could ever ask for. If you’re already familiar with Coffins, then you know what you’re here for, and the band delivers it, just as they’ve done many times before. Over the course of the past few weeks, Sinister Oath has likely become my most-listened-to death metal album of 2024 so far, and I’m guessing that trend will continue for a good while to come.

Simple and heavy, kids. This is how Coffins does it, and this is how it’s done.