Review by Vladimir on January 24, 2024.

Polish death metal? Don’t mind if I do! If you are into raw, uncompromising and sick death metal tunes, then you might want to stick with me on this one. As the topic of this review, I’ll be covering a polish death metal band Sacrofuck from Warsaw, with the centre being their second full-length Święta Krew that is due to be released on January 26th, 2024 via Godz Ov War Productions. 

From the very get-go, it is an annihilating and uncompromising beast of death metal that comes straight in your face with blast beats, double-bass drumming, tremolo picking riffs, guttural growl vocals and harsh shouting backing vocals. The riffs aren’t all about expressing pure death metal aggression all the way through, because they also have some wickedness and darkness to them which creates a very intimidating atmosphere in each song. Aside from the highlighted riff ideas, the drums also deserve some credit for being the strong centre of focus with a dynamic range, with examples of d-beat drumming that appear on tracks 'Niech Płynie Krew' and 'Zabij Wszystkich Których Kochasz', adding a very Swedish death metal flavour to this already established constantly raw banger, and even mid-tempo drumming on the sixth track 'Brama Snów' that give some catchiness to it. 

From start to finish, this is quite an ear-pulsing and merciless death metal performance that just doesn’t seem to take a break, killing absolutely everything that stands in its way from one track to another without looking back. The strong suite of its songwriting is that it is stylistically consistent and perhaps even progressing to an even more brutal and heavier approach with every following track. The guitar work on here is absolutely superb, aside from the traditional use of death metal riffing there is also some soloing going on that relies on using wah wah pedals. The album cover is very well done with that very eerie distorted greyish artstyle, which gives it some underground death metal quality to it, while also reminding me a bit of some Skitsystem vibe to it. The album has got a very tight and powerful sound production which did a great job with the incredibly loud and raw guitar tone that expressed the wickedness of the riffs even more, and the biggest highlight is that it also managed to convey that pure 90’s death metal essence. 

This is one beast of an album that slays all the way through, taking no prisoners and it also radiates an incredibly death-defying quality to it that will be hardly outmatched by other death metal bands of this calibre. Even though I put much less faith into death metal bands of the modern era, coming across something so wicked and heavy such as this was a pleasant surprise, especially since it managed to connect with my love for classic 90’s death metal. If you are a big fan of oldschool death metal which possesses all these aforementioned musical traits, then make sure that you check out this album, it’s a killer alright! 

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by Carl on October 29, 2024.

In these last twenty or so years, I've had a number of Polish colleagues at different times, so you'd think I would've picked up some more of the language than curse words and smutty expressions, but unfortunately, that's it. So when a release entirely in the language comes floating by, I'm still completely at a loss when it comes to what it's all about.

What I do understand is that this band is made up of a bunch of people that you don't want to cross. At least that is the feeling I get from their music, which is a demonic cross between black/death metal in the vein of Angelcorpse, Hetzer, and Arkhon Infaustus, and thundering sturdy old school death metal the way it's made by acts like Cianide and Pentacle. It's a mixture that is being brought to the unsuspecting listener with a rough punk energy, simply exuding primitive anger and rage. In this diabolic amalgamation of steel-plated death metal guitars, aggressive mutated Morbid Angel riffs, and brutal straight forward percussive pummeling, there has been made room for a dose of surprisingly capable soaring guitar leads, old school style. On top of this volatile concoction comes a gruff barked vocal style that has me thinking of Wannes from Pentacle one time, and Stevo from Impetigo the other, and it must be said that this adds an extra layer of demented menace to the band's music. Despite the rough attitude to their metal, the band has a varied edge to their style, utilizing slower stomp to offset the blasting speed and thrash-fueled rage, avoiding the trap of becoming a one-sided venture.

Sacrofuck has on offer all the ingredients for a banging release, but there are unfortunately some things lacking. One of those is that the execution and tempo changes don't always run as smoothly, with for example the messy middle part in "Podobieństwo", something that simply doesn't sound right. Furthermore, I feel that the band's explosive cocktail of voraciousness gets curtailed by a somewhat lackluster production job. The guitars sound kinda weak throughout, and the oppressive snare doesn't help proceedings all that much either. Good thing the music itself is excellent because if it was all depending on this production job, things would've looked a lot bleaker.

As a debut, this is a passable release, but it was on the follow-up "Swieta Krew" that the band would really lash out with full force and conviction, so if you are unfamiliar with Sacrofuck I'd suggest you start with that one. "Ekstaza Upodlenia" isn't a bad album, but it's one that gets completely overshadowed by its superior successor.

Good thing I heard "Swieta Krew" first, because I'm not sure I would've been as interested in Sacrofuck had it been the other way around.

Rating: 7 out of 10