Sanctification – “Black Reign”, 2009
(Pulverized)
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 when you get 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 “Forest Gump”scriptwriters.
The expected down-tuned guitars, blast-beats, asthmatic elephant blowing through a snorkel vocals are all present on this album. 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. Soundwise Sanctification edge closer to Deicide than Dismember. However most of the songs are the songs are mid-tempo so they blur together. Instead of invoking the feeling of being run over head on by a Mac truck which then reverses to make sure the job’s completed and leaving the victim flattened and incapable of passing on stories to his grandkids, “Black Reign” just leaves a listener flat due to its generic nature.
1/5
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