review: Sacrament ov Impurity

review by MMB

Sacrament ov Impurity

The Purest of Sins

release date: February 13th, 2017

label: independent

1.Apparation of Bygone Lament 10:08

2.Your Sleep, I Covet 06:04

3.Sepulture of Modern Man 08:17

4.A Time of Darkness and Decay 06:42

5.Bowing unto a Monolith of Grief 09:10

6.Sacrificial Descent 08:20

7.hidden unnamed track 5:40

total time 54:35

Sacrament ov Impurity is from the town of Mount Vernon, which is located to the north of Seattle, in the state of Washington, United States. The music of the darkness is the mission of Sacrament ov Impurity, an independent occult black metal band. The new album begins with a ten-minute statement, “Apparation of Bygone Lament,” on the essence of the band, what has been, what is and what will be. This is an epic composition in which several main, fundamental elements are present. The first three minutes and forty seconds are a midtempo black metal monolith with their signature disturbing screams, building up to the directions that the music will take. By the four-minute mark the chaos has been unleashed and is on the loose. Soon, everything is a lot clearer: the dimensions of the song open up. Blasting black metal and headbanging, fist-raising metal arrives. This show is on the road. Once this happens, they give themselves the freedom to go anywhere, from moods of torture and anguish to the speeds to wake up slumbering minds.

A very good and exemplary introduction to Sacrament ov Impurity in 2017. After that mammoth opening hymn, what follows is a different and uptempo beginning. It's Sacrament ov Impurity doing their version of the "Living after Midnight" start for a song. It's contagious! Now this song, “Your Sleep, I Covet,” goes into complete headbanging mode. Do people even realize how much fun Sacrament ov Impurity music is?! Tap your foot, nod your head, raise your fist, bang your head, mosh, slam, whatever your inner instincts tell you to obey, obey this! To end, the last couple of minutes switch to the band's controlled, disciplined doses of doom.

They do whatever they want and somehow make it sound very coherent and you might forget to notice how it is all taking place. Going from full necro black metal speed to rocking segments is something that they do easily. The totally blazing speed gives way to a pensive moments and then back to absolute blasting, and it all goes together smoothly, in my opinion. By the way, what a great drummer. Just listening to the drumming and all the crazy little details is entertaining by itself. As a general rule, they like to switch things up a bit and not keep a song totally linear from beginning to end. Expect meandering ways. Having said that, "A Time of Darkness and Decay" is one of the more direct ones. There's a contemplative start that goes until the 1:30 mark, then the headbanging metal rolls out and that's pretty much how it stays, with some brief changes here and there. This song is certainly one of the more direct ones on the album. On the other hand, it would not be right to give the song the name "Bowing unto a Monolith of Grief" without a healthy dose of doom, now would it? They do anything and everything they can and feel like doing with their black metal, including incorporating slow moments that build up towards frenzies of speed and intensity, and everything in between.

Actually, there are a few surprises on this album. The band rocks out quite a bit and shows off some handsome chops in the process. You'd be pleased with how memorable the songs are, too. Some songs are long, certainly. Within those, there are definitely segments and sections that you will recall later and want to return to, to see if you remember it accurately. The last track, “Sacrificial Descent,” appears as a 19-minute song, but the time frame is structured as follows: eight minutes of music, then a long silence, and the music returns for the last five minutes and 40 seconds. This last portion of music begins with the sounds of air raid sirens and airplanes diving to bomb the living daylights out of everything in sight and then they unchain a fierce campaign on the ears, sounding at the top of their game. This track, which I will here call “Carpet-Bombing Black Metal Scorching the Earth to Rubble and Ashes,” features possibly, as you can tell, the most horrendous moments on the album, and in addition, the album’s most elegant moment in the form a melodic guitar. Then, it’s time to bring it all to an end. For that, they need the most ravenous black metal once again and the sounds of machine guns firing.

So ugly, so beautiful.

Sacrament ov Impurity.

sacramentovimpurity.bandcamp.com

facebook.com/SacramentOvImpurity/