Sarcoptes - Songs and Dances of Death (2016) / 88%

Sarcoptes – Songs and Dances of Death (2016)
Cimmerian Shade Recordings

"Knock, knock, I'm Death, what's up!?"

Epic thrashy black, that's what up.

I do think it’s still possible for metal bands to release quality material falling in the traditional way we classify genres. After all, death, black or thrash are well defined styles played by a large numbers of young musicians. Nevertheless, bands playing one dimensional extreme metal nowadays tend to get boring and unimaginative. I’m not generalising, of course but bands like Vektor are much more interesting than generic shit like Bonded by Blood or Evile.

I mean, I’ll enjoy a new and well done old school death metal album but if I want to hear the style, I’ll go back to the classics (freaking Asphyx or early Deicide hits the spot). Damn, it’s nice to hear some inventiveness from time to time. Metal is a genre where almost everything has been done, bands who manage to impress with their distinctiveness are often the ones who are combining many genres at once to create some new concoctions. Sometimes, the recipe just doesn’t work and is inedible, some pretentious kids think they can compose 15 minutes songs of Opethian proportions and get away with it but you actually need a lot of talent to pull off those mashups. Sarcoptes are definitely above average on that front. The duo from Sacramento combines black metal with an healthy dose of thrash aesthetics and riffing (possibly due to their Californian origin) but they also add a huge helping of symphonic and epic influences to their superbly crafted debut album.

I like how the album flows, it starts with four six minutes tracks, delivering epicness in a well contained package and then the two longest tracks are unleashed at the end. “Barbarossa” and its thirteen minutes duration clearly was the highlight of this tight but expansive record for me. It ends with lasers and World War 2 warfare effects recalling the B series classic starring Jane Fonda but surprinsingly, it fails to be cheesy or ridiculous.

At times it sounds like it’s combining the early material Cradle of Filth (I don’t care what you guys think, Dusk and Her Embrace and Cruelty and the Beast are fucking excellent) with the melodic, riff based approach of Dissestion or Immortal at their thrashies. The symphonic arrangements are audible and sometimes in your face (the joyful conclusion of “Within the Labyrinth Mind” combined with the mighty blastbeats is incredible) but they’re never asinine or boring. They knew that the winning formula was to compose ultra good riffs before anything else, their songs are complex, rich and mostly fast while keeping the epic feel throughout the whole thing. The mid paced moments are extremely well done as well, their music has this sense of grandeur and it’s really interesting.

I’ve been mostly ambivalent towards symphonic black metal these days, I’m not quite following the genre as I think most of what I’ve heard is on the asepticized side but Sarcoptes with their clever mix of black, thrash, epic and symphonic metal could very well make me interested in the genre again

Oh and compared to Iron Maiden’s Dance of Death, the cover art isn’t crappy at all!

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Valknacht - Le Sacrifice d'Ymir (2014) / 50%

Le sacrifice de l'originalité

The third album from these Quebecois explore a sort of highly melodic black metal and the quintet has all the right elements in place to tour all over America with Finntroll or Eluveitie but not much to distinguish themselves in the modern, saccharine extreme metal world.

The eight songs album is cluttered with overlong numbers like the title track or “Bataille de Maldon”, they're well written, very well produced but nonetheless they're pretty damn boring to me. Even if they're like ten minutes, it doesn't have this epic feel, it simply seems to be prolonged compositions that don't need to be that long unlike atmospheric masters like Moonsorrow. There's so many stuff in every songs that it feels bloated, they were trying to be so epic by incorporating so many riffs, leads and symphonic/folk/pagan elements that they just overcooked the meat and potatoes.

I simply can't stand that sort of overbearing keyboard presence in metal, it feels synthetic and often serves as a way to hide your bad songwriting skills, not that Valknacht are that bad, they're nowhere near the uber mediocrity of Fleshgod Apocalypse since they do have riffs, not very good one admittedly but they go somewhere. The band as its core is still pretty much a black metal one but for whatever reasons, they felt the need to include this symphonic shell around them and I think that's awful.

The folk elements like the flutes have this forced feeling, it's not natural and it made me aware of something I'll call cultural appropriation. The Quebec scene is known for its distinct identity, be it the traditional folk elements of Brume d'Automne or Forteresse or the snowy atmosphere of Neige et Noirceur. These bands have a clear originality maybe often due to their patriotic political agenda.

Being apolitical is no reason for not trying to find your path though. Valknacht is a poor man Nokturnal Mortum (The Voice of Steel era) or Equilibrium, they lack subtlety, cohesion and they just do... too much. They have neither the talent and intricate darkness of Csjethe or the honest folk melodic black of Hiverna who can totally compose interesting songs mixing folkloric violin and black metal. Le Sacrifice d'Ymir even if it's in French (a non issue here) is based entirely on European concepts, mainly Norse mythology of course and while these themes are usually interesting, it's clearly a choice I'm not that comfortable with. It's like putting a bunch of metal friendly lyrical themes in a hat and choosing one randomly, maybe the next album will be about Egypt or Chinese folklore! This sort of cultural appropriation can be done gracefully but it's always sort of icky for me, there's this fear of being labelled a nationalist if you write about your own heritage and that's kind of bullshit. Let the innumerable Norwegian and Swedish bands sing about their history, they do it well.

That's just me, maybe I'm simply bickering because I think their music simply blows and they should cut some unnecessary stuff from it. The black metal core is decent, albeit generic, it's just the chocolate surrounding that doesn't appeal to me. But if you like manure on your extreme metal like Wintersun's Time I, be sure to check this band. Even the Kris Verwimp cover art is uninspired! Most of the black metal bands from Québec are interesting, this one simply isn't.

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