Review by Faithless on September 27, 2020.

As the “dominant” species in the third rock from the sun, we humans have been in a constant struggle between keeping civilization going and creating our demise. Empires have risen and fallen and our current society is speedily going towards extinction. We are a zero-type civilization and the horizon looks blurry each day, leading us to be the virus, the cancer of earth. After the album The Phobos and Deimos Suite Serocs strikes once again the technical brutal death metal scene with an EP called Vore. This EP deals with the theme of humans as devourers of everything on the planet and us causing our obsolescence.

Serocs' sound hasn't changed much from their previous effort. The band keeps up with the blasting and technical brutality in the drums, fast and intricate riffing, techy bass lines, and horrendous guttural vocals. In my view, this EP serves as a way to perhaps include songs that were not into The Phobos and Deimos Suite for x or y reason and also as a teaser for what's to come shortly. The production, writing style, and instrumental attack is kind of similar to previous efforts. The only thing I can say changed a bit was that the guitar passages are more melodic than before. Of course, without sacrificing aggression and technique.

Vore is composed of 7 tracks in which 2 previous versions of their 2011 demo were included ('Nihilus' and 'Anthropic'). I have to say that the new versions of the demo songs are sounding brutal enough to justify their existence in this EP. By the way, those are instrumental versions, no vocal parts included. Anyways, let's get into the other 5 songs. The EP opens with 'Anthropic', this track starts with a short mysterious intro that quickly builds into the main riff, which is rhythmic, melodic, and catchy enough to keep your headbanging. The bass is prominent and pulsating, something that most of the time doesn't happen in technical brutal death metal bands. The bass usually gets buried into the mix and is just relegated to breakdowns and slow parts. Speaking of slow parts, there is only one moment to get your breath back in this EP; 'Shallow Vaults' is a brief instrumental that bridges 'Building a Shrine Upon Vanishing Sands' and 'The Temple of Knowledge'. Apart from the small interlude, you will only find frantic blast beats and complex guitar sections.

As I already mentioned, Vore is a demonstration of the inhuman technique in all the instruments, and is not about showing off how fast they are or how brutal. It is about how coherent and cohesive you are with the concept you're displaying. 'To Self-Devour' closes the butchery consistently, keeping up with the melodic guitar moments along with the EP as well as with the technical parts shown in the bass and drums. This is by far my favorite song of Vore due to the leitmotif drawn in the guitars that makes that track catchy, labyrinthine, and aggressive. A perfect closure.

Concluding with my review, I just want to say that Serocs has been a very consistent act since the beginning of their career. Throwing competent material into the scene, this band takes their time to release smart music into a sub-genre that tends to be repetitive and sometimes dumb. So folks, it is time to self-devour your brains and spin Vore, a very interesting and decent piece of technical brutal death metal from the band Serocs.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Review by Jeger on September 15, 2024.

Rage! Rage against the dying of the light! (*) Why? For so many of us, we get to the point where we just don’t want to be here anymore and no longer want to play life’s twisted games: the catch-22s, the snakes in the grass, and the vicious cycles. So, the pale sun rises with its own bizarre sense of drab over each day and then sets to ominous tones of dread as we settle into night’s sacred misery. But what of those nights of fire? The eves of past when we went not gentle into that good night and the passion of life was like a drug - strung out on diablerie youth - eyes brimming with the promise of tomorrow. Gone… forever… Left with only bitter memories of a life that never was and realistically never could’ve been. Death drawing ever-nearer, ever-faster as we age, and that part of us that just wants to run towards it with the same kind of enthusiasm we once held for life. All light does eventually leave unless you’re one of the dumb happy ones whom I envy so… In 2015, Australia’s Advent Sorrow released As All Light Leaves Her. 

To experience depressive black metal is to venture into where most souls dare not: the agony, the hopelessness and the weight of it like a headstone over your grave, but for us, these looming tones feel like home. On the other side of things do we dwell and I’m a firm believer in the notion that we are not actually depressed; we simply possess the capacity for seeing truth in ways that others cannot, the way things truly are, and it’s a weight indeed. A depressive episode set to music is “As All Light Leaves Her” - wailing in agony on the inside - a look of indifference on our faces and as “With Storming Death” plays, it’s to the excruciating sound of suffocating vocals and maddening soliloquies overlain by an oppressive atmosphere that conjures up visuals of suicide by the rope. The noose awaits this eve, ominously swaying to the night’s autumnal breeze through the backwood canopy and upon your desperate gaze. Spellbound at the thought of what you know you must do… 

It hasn’t always been this way. We’ve experienced joy and it was during those aforementioned salad days of youth; back before the disorders and the addictions manifested into life sentences. Each day welcomed with a literal fucking hard-on. There’s a silver lining to this record as well, this ethereal sort of melody to it that glimmers like fool’s hope for a better tomorrow, but always back into the mires of despair do we find ourselves as tracks like “While Bones Are Broken” unfold - cries resonate through a tortured guitars-dominated backdrop - rebounding into a cacophony of everything that made the Advent Sorrow depressive era so fucking great: frenetic yet masterful compositions, genre-spanning and gripping like cinema. Black metal for fetal position weeping and for hopeless rain-soaked midnights all alone. Boldly absorbing the album’s overbearing energy so as to properly appreciate every underlying melody and every melancholic passage. Like a tragedy being told and what a dramatic vision for an LP. Advent Sorrow really create an immersive experience that hits at both visceral and heart levels. 

“Skin to Suffer In” - once again this brilliant contrast between beauty and pain - soaring now somehow upon wings of lead as lively, almost danceable rhythms drive forward entrancing tremolo passages and into the void of no hope, just beyond all of these striking melodies do we so eagerly venture, because passing never sounded so goddamned sweet. This is why we are passionate about black metal, songs like this one that move us in ways that feel like flight, that feel like weightlessness. Just giving up, just letting it all go now… 

“As All Light Leaves Her” is an album one could write about for hours on end. There are so many layers to peel back and so much underneath to discover. A therapeutic adventure into the realm of perpetual grief where it feels like we just can’t bear anymore, the weight, remember? Until the end, the final two tracks, the aforementioned “Skin to Suffer In” (drooling over this one) and “Absolute Perpetual Death” that illuminate the freedom of surrender and the final release of death. Death so absolute.

We don’t want to go on anymore, it’s too much. Who wants to stick around and suffer every fucking day? But what if I told you that to suffer is the Left Hand way and that only the existential dread of Satan is pure. Now, let us suffer with a deeper understanding of why and excitedly gaze through the Satanic darkness and into the light that awaits on the other side. Face despair and stare down death with “As All Light Leaves Her” - a little more than your conventional depressive black metal record - an enlightenment, an epiphany, why we listen to black metal… Rage against the dying of the light! Or embrace its dimming as we grow a bit wiser and a bit stronger, all the while as the light fades like aging with each passing season of suffering…

 *Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Poem by Dylan Thomas.

Rating: 9 out of 10