Sadis Euphoria "Instinct|Obsession" CD
[Willowtip]
Here's some raw, grinding brutal death metal with guttural low growls and a good mix of chunky old school death metal riffing alongside chaotic blasts of intense speed. I like the fact that they tend to keep the tracks on the short side, generally hovering around two to three minutes, but reaching as little as 30 seconds and as many as five minutes occasionally. A lot of changes can be crammed into compact spaces and that works out quite well for keeping things interesting regarding a genre than can at times become quickly boring. As far as the songwriting, there's generally almost no melody at all, just sheer aggression on numerous levels across various tempo ranges. Though rare tracks like "Burning in Flesh" do offer up some slower riffing with some scathing high screams and more obvious dissonance than tends to be present elsewhere. I actually enjoy the massive, pounding slow riffs more than anything. "An Inquiry of Threshold" is the longest song, and also the most melodic - an eerie clean instrumental that has some obfuscated percussion and strange windy sorts of noises in the distance. There are a couple of quick experimental noise interludes spread out on the record, but I have to say I find them annoying and pretty out of place. They break up the flow and don't really serve a purpose. Not unlike their last record I think the main thing holding this back is the recording. It's not bad, it's just not suitable for what they're doing and it hinders the listening experience for me. The drums sound pretty good but they're mixed unevenly so that the bass drums sort of fall to the back and the snare pops out front a bit much. The bass has a distinct sound but it's pretty flat and therefore gets lost behind the guitars, which dominate the mix for the most part. I also think the vocals sound good, but they too can fall behind the music on occasion. None of this is too incredibly bothersome as your ears adjust to it, but I just think there's too much space to the recording. The bass needs to be thicker and louder, and everything needs a little more of a balance to close up the gaps. Visually everything is totally consistent and uses muddy, busy layers of reddish textures and text with an image of hands grasping at a knife in the center. The spread of the booklet has the lyrics tightly compacted in a nice, crisp font with the song titles in large, bold letters. Very cool. For some reason the song title "Divine Incisions" is listed twice, with different lyrics, so I assume one set must be the lyrics to a different song that isn't listed inside the booklet. The lyrical content and flow is fairly interesting, not to mention atypical for the genre: "...an alliance is formed on behalf of the capitulation inanimate superior, sentient inferior alas the concealed infections are spilt and a dream of death comes true." I still have to say that Sadis Euphoria is one of the less interesting bands on the Willowtip roster, but they're still getting there. If they could work the production the right way they'd likely be heartily hailed by the death metal community. (6/10)
Running time - 31:27, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Through Our Vains, String of Intellect, Divine Incisions]
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