Sepulchral Curse – At the Onset of Extinction (Review)

Sepulchral Curse are a blackened death metal band from Finland. This is their second EP.

Do you fancy a bit of old-school death metal that’s been infested with a Scandinavian black metal influence? Well, you’ve come to the right place!

With a firm, strong sound that avoids being overly polished or pristine, the band tear out their brand of aggressive darkness with ease and passion. You can also hear some bass too, which I’m always a fan of.

I love the singer’s pitch-black growls. It’s like he’s vomiting forth all of the world’s hatred with a huge cancerous roar that threatens to split the Earth. Wow. When high-pitched screams appear, these are actually quite distinctive; it’s as if a traditional black metal scream has been infected with a kind of old-school UK hardcore style. It’s quite unusual, but does the job.

The music is where the real combination of black and death metal happens. Merging the rolling, crushing nature of old-school death metal with the blackened melodic side of the Scandinavian black metal scene, these tracks offer a good combination of the two. Brutality and textured darkness work together to make for songs that have a lot of strengths.

A lot of the time there’s a good balance between the two styles, with the deathly growls of the singer anchoring things in death metal territory. However, the black metal influence in the guitars seems to be slowly winning the war, and I can imagine the band shifting over even more to this side of their style in the future. Only time will tell.

For now though the band hit the right spot between the two and At the Onset of Extinction is very enjoyable. At 23 minutes in length this whets the appetite nicely for, (hopefully), a full-length in the future.

Highly recommended.