SADIST

Firescorched

Agonia
rating icon 8 / 10

Track listing:

01. Accabadora
02. Fleshbound
03. Finger Food
04. Burial of a Clown
05. Loa
06. Aggression Regression
07. Three Mothers and the Old Devil Father
08. Trauma (Impaired Mind Functionality)
09. Firescorched


Progressive death metal is enjoying a particularly rich period in its history right now, with countless great new bands doing strange and wonderful things with brutal music. It is also an excellent time to give SADIST some long due recognition. Italy's masters of deeply weird extremity clearly take pride in their underground ethics, but the music they have made over the last 20 years has generally been pretty accessible too, albeit in a very twisted kind of way. Superficially, "Firescorched" is a much more vicious and aggressive record than 2018's "Spellbound", but it's also wildly entertaining.

Opener "Accabadora" is a feast of gothic opulence and grandiose terror, with frontman Trevor Nadir in full be-cloaked demon mode. It's a dramatic start, astutely followed by the razor-slash schizophrenia of "Fleshbound", wherein skull-rattling thrash riffs and looping, fretless bass collide with a warped but eminently hummable chorus and a hugely peculiar burst of isolated, stuttering synths. Recent single "Finger Food" is even catchier, despite plainly being the product of twisted minds. Kicking off with a full throttle, angular melo-death attack, it takes several unhinged left turns and, lyrically speaking, will probably put you off your dinner. SADIST have always been significantly more deranged than most of their peers, of course: early albums like "Crust" and "Lego" poked at boundaries with a complete lack of self-consciousness and were all the stronger as a result. "Firescorched" is very much in that same tradition, but the Italians have become adept at bringing the theoretically implausible to life. "Burial of a Clown" shouldn't really work: two parts all-out death metal attack to one part cock-eyed electro-noir, it's audacious and wonderfully eccentric.

Elsewhere, "Loa" is an intermittently pretty prog metal instrumental that reveals an unexpected, sweet side to SADIST's repertoire, while also veering off on all manner of dissonant tangents. "Aggression Regression" goes directly for any nearby throats, with a labyrinth of razor-wire riffs and skittering, jazzy transitions; "Trauma (Impaired Functionality)" is all rolling grooves and mid-paced crunch, until a disarming acoustic final descent gently flips the script. "Three Mothers and the Old Devil Father" marries prog metal showboating and myopic blasting to fidgeting electro hooks and a cool, hard rock stomp, while the closing title track is a sickening horror movie soundtrack condensed into four hysterically intense and off-kilter minutes. Once again, the fact that no one else sounds like this is a huge selling point on its own. "Firescorched" is yet another great record by one of metal's most willfully contrary but always fascinating bands. You simply can't fake this level of weird.

Author: Dom Lawson
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).