RSS Feed


TAPHOS
Come Ethereal Sombreness

Blood Harvest (2018)
Rating: 8/10

The title of this album doesn’t suggest I’m going to be in for a happy adventure; Come Ethereal Sombreness being the long-awaited debut slab from Danish death metallers Taphos.

After a quick introduction (‘Letum’) we get chainsawed into little pieces by the juddering bulldozer that is the gnashing ‘Impending Peril’; a vicious, cold and clammy descent into the album cover artwork which showcases all levels of subterranean gloominess. The fast-paced structure is led by the rasping vocal blurts of “H”, before a melancholic passage interrupts until we return back to the hammering grind.

This is catchy, hellish death metal that bridges numerous cracks between Finnish, Norwegian and German styles of blackened extremity as dark, thrashing waves consume the listener. Manic segmentation gives way to sinister rolls of doominess as ‘Thrive In Upheaval’ comes rattling and hammering in blistering fashion, and is arguably the fastest expression on the opus with the relentless whacks of “U” on drums.

Taphos plumbs the depths of cold desperation and brackish, blackish seething. Their unharmonious chugs leak like fetid ooze as the twin guitar demons cavort in despicable and miserable fashion, a bleak, flailing solo escaping from the chilly cracks before the combo resorts once again to a speed metal outburst.

The grotesque ‘Ocular Blackness’ is a dank cascade of slower tones; expressions of morbidity fluent as the outfit slurs its way like grim slurry before the foul odours of those frantic axe chords come fluttering like manic, rabid bats. It’s heavy and fast, thrashy and cavernous, while ‘A Manifest Of Trepidation’ melodiously flirts with melancholy with its wailing siren of a guitar before become bathed in a squalid, hellish rush – the vocals nodding at some mid 80s Teutonic thrash rasp, laced with gruffer tones.

The acoustic ‘Dysfori’ provides respite from the speedy noise, which returns with the furious gales of ‘Insidious Gyres’ and then ‘Livores’. Both are bile-soaked, grime-caked entities – the former a hasty retreat into the black caverns, while the latter begins with a more menacing mid-tempo prowess before transforming into a jarring and almost elusive stab of a track propelled by its manky drum kicks and windy guitar tones of morbidity.

There’s no interest in aping old school designs here as Taphos effortlessly blend black metal aesthetics with grim, foreboding chunks of deathly malevolence. Only the crypts of Hades can fully ring out to such an unearthly clamour; a soundtrack that more than lives up to its name.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share