New Zealand Heavy Metal Forum & Discussion

[Phlegm]

You shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Neither should a paragraph start with a cliche, but convention and rules were invented to be broken. Swedish death metal band SANCTIFICATION either missed the memo about crushing the rules or the meaning got lost in translation. "Black Reign" is like getting a packaged box for Christmas. You give it that shake that lets you know that someone was incapable of thinking of a more imaginative gift than a box of chocolates. The blame clearly lies firmly on the shoulders of the "Forrest Gump" scriptwriters.

The downtuned guitars, blast beats, asthmatic-elephant-blowing-through-a-snorkel vocals are all present as expected. The clear but gruff spoken chorus of the title song is the closest these guys come to any semblance of melody. "Thirst for Blood" is relentless with crushing riffs over pounding drums. Sound-wise SANCTIFICATION edge closer to DEICIDE than DISMEMBER, but most of the songs putter along at mid-tempo, so they sort of blur together. Instead of leaving the listener with the feeling of being flattened by a truck, and thus rendered incapable of passing on stories to his grandkids, "Black Reign" just leaves a listener flat due to its generic execution.


1/5

http://www.myspace.com/sanctificationband