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NEPENTE
I Will Get Your Soul EP

Cimmerian Shade Recordings (2015)
Rating: 7/10

In 2012 Colombian extreme metallers Nepente released its sophomore outing Suffering Is The Seed, which emerged four years after the 2008 debut Atonements. Both albums did enough in the blackened death metal department to establish the South American psychopaths as a truly formidable act. Reliant on crushing riffs, trouncing percussion and the volatile vocal coughs of José Fernando Ospina, the combo was always going to be a force to be reckoned with.

Although Nepente haven’t been doing anything new since their inception, their barbaric musicality has made people wake up and notice, and those who haven’t followed the dark furrow ploughed by the band have been cast to the wayside.

And so with this new release – a four-track EP – we get more of the same hazardous, crushing metal built around those chesty, phlegm-ridden barks of Ospina and hyper drums which only relent when the band shifts into slower but still as equally gruelling passages. Nepente has a variety of styles within its framework, but for the most part offer up a seething arrogance that stems from Polish giants Behemoth.

Having said that, the quartet at times beefs up the likes of Slayer, hints at that Swedish dash of debauchery (Dissection) and also toys with sprigs of Deicide and Marduk for forcefulness. The guitar tone of Nepente has always been something of note because it feels tight and so crushingly heavy at times, and the percussion of Mauricio Aristizábal is always a punishing barrage to behold.

Sadly, because of its short nature the EP flies by so quickly that it’ll take a few spins to really get your teeth into it, but once you have you’ll revel in the intensity of tracks such as ‘Show Me That You Are Suffering’ and the immense title track. Although the cuts on offer are not remarkably original, it will still appeal to those who get off on the no frills pulverisation of, say, Malevolent Creation or Brazilian troupe Krisiun, who are also adept at mixing thrashier cyclones of energy with deathlier shades.

For me, there’s enough sonic heaviness alone to warrant further investigation for any metalhead who is initially hesitant or unfamiliar with Nepente, because for every pounding segment of weighty mayhem there’s an aggressive hasty blast lurking just round the corner. I personally prefer the deeper tones of the vocal to the black metal rasps and yelps, but with blackened death metal there has always been that air of predictability. However, I Will Get Your Soul clunks along at such an alarming and powerful rate that for all of its faults it still batters the mind, even if it rarely stretches the imagination.

Neil Arnold

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