Sagrada Blasfêmia – O Eterno Tormento
Since Regnum Umbra Ignis haven’t unleashed anything for five years it has been left to Sagrada Blasfêmia to carry the flag of Brazilian underground Black Metal. Indulging in this is comparable to having a zombie on your back chewing at your skull and ripping your face open with it’s soily claws.
With a minute or so long funeral organ intro that really dosen’t prepare you for what is to follow they seem to intentionally blunder into ‘Disseminando o Reino da Morte’. Its fast furious and raw as fuck. It sounds like a proper garage recording but although the production is almost non-existent it comes across perfectly as intense and unholy Black Metal with that South American aggression all over it.
Sure they play some wickedly quick riffs but where Sagrada Blasfêmia really stand out is that they often break into lighter picked guitar sections to imbue their music with an uneasy eeriness, as if in a moment of dark reflection in a lull of the undead assault. At all other times though there are drums going off like artillery cannons and wretched harsh vocals shrieking through the ether at you.
The title track is the finest example of the band. Beginning with Gothic style keyboards that lead into a fairly tuneful picked riff with slow drums. The vocals adopt a contrasting approach though and half belong to the grim harshness and the other half are creepy authoritative female spoken word. I don’t pretend to understand Portuguese but the vocal tracks on this one give me a mental image of some slutty S&M juggernaut looking like an exploded sausage wrapped up in black tape ordering some grubby goblin with a nose like Mortiis to sniff and eat her pussy while she talks dirty to him.
Nice variation too as they change between fast paced chaos and the dungeon scene. Analogies aside it is a distinguished slice of Black Metal and if it was ever recorded with slightly better production it could qualify for underground classic status. The last two tracks revert back to bludgeoning insanity and they finish off with the title track from their 2006 demo ‘Império De Sangue’ which is a real ripper.
This is probably a love it or hate it release that some people won’t understand. If you are hardcore enough though you’ll fucking love the disregard for any niceness or mercy that the band show. When it finishes the zombie I mentioned at the start of the review has your brains and ears smeared all over its bloated rotting face.
Black Metal is dead. In the UK at least. Seeing as though it is the place that gave birth to the genre it is as fuckin’ useless a broke-dick dog. There is no scene to speak of, just the odd one or two equally useless bands trying in vain to mimic some of the more [...]
Opening with a song title of the length Bal Sagoth would be proud of (thankfully that’s as the only comparison to draw), the imaginatively titled ‘A Glimpse of the Image of Lucifer Gleaming Beyond the Subterraneous Black Sun’ marches forth. Mid paced, it stamps away with the precision of a well oiled Black Metal machine [...]