Review by Fran on December 20, 2020.

As much as I praise this initiative, Sempiternal Opprobrium has a well coined sound and concept after all and this demo exposes that clearly although I can’t help but feel the songs featured in this record are pretty boring. Vore is not an academic musician so you can’t expect virtuosity or progression here but his natural drumming skills make him a precise musician regarding timing. The bass and the guitars are completely unidimensional in terms of composition though: they never drift apart from each other and even if the themes are correctly executed, the melodic intervals lack taste, don’t feel thought out at all and overall are kind of rookie… art is about communication and if the melodies don’t transmit any feeling, there’s something wrong.

The options of sound modeling were wisely used though, the exaggeratedly low range from the gutturals combines perfectly with the B tuning and the fastest parts sound tight on every instrument. There are some double bass drum parts scarcely used but this band is more cavernous and slow than fast and aggressive. The same goes with the fast tremolo picking on the strings, not 100% legible but giving some sustain and mixed with that cathedral reverberation every instrument sounds huge and thick on the final tracks. The record is monotonous because the songs aren’t particularly good but you can clearly see where this band is going so it accomplishes its mission. There’s some Gregorian chant aura added to the band’s sound that isn’t limited to the vocals but feeds from their harmonization and the strings on the low end, nice touch.

I liked Sempiternal Opprobium’s second release better because the riffs were better thought out and had that ‘evil’ feeling and some groove. This album is way more plain instead but the trademark broad and roomy sounds Vore seems to like a lot are undoubtedly present.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10