This sure was a little ditty of a surprise.  Never heard of The Psalm, a death metal act, hailing from Greece.  This ep, I,  was originally released a few years ago and thankfully Repulsive Echo Records have reissued and added some extra tracks.  “A Mass For The Bereaved” starts out with a weird beginning, which is atmospheric and a killer bass guitar tone comes in as the double bass swirls around your chest cavity awaiting the right moment to destroy you.  The singer does a spot on Martin van Drunen impersonation.  The tune gets into a killer blast and I notice a wee bit of Nile influence, but really this is pretty original stuff The Psalm creates.  The bass guitar’s depth is so excellent and adds such killer melody to the rhythm section.  The song is close to 7 minutes and has some guitar solos which is how the tune trails off.  Powerful and emotive song.   “Ascetic” at over 7 minutes gets things right under way with the Holy Shit moment as the tune erupts immediately with a monster blast.  Excellent guitar and original tone-nice and heavy.  The blasts are super ferocious and I love the start stop aspect on this song.  The tune gets into some atmospherics.  Mid-paced rumbling heaviness and then some melodic passage with pained and anguished spoken word vocals.  Excellent and original song.

One of the bonus songs is a Rotting Christ cover song of “The Mystical Meeting”.  Being that I was never a Rotting Christ fan I really cannot tell you how it compares to the original.  The Psalm must do a good job of the cover as the song is not really done in their over the top brutal sound.  But since the song is pretty catchy it makes me wonder if I should start looking into Rotting Christ’s discography.  “Typhlosis” is a short song, under 2 minutes.  Mid-paced rumbling before erupting into a blast with a louder than average guitar solo pushed a little too high in the mix.  The solo comes back again and then the songs is over rather quickly.

The ep ends with “Yawning Chasm”, which is taken from one of the band’s live concerts.  The Psalm likes writing long songs as this track is close to 7 minutes.  The live recording sound works really well and the track has a little tinge of black metal, ala Darkthrone.  The song picks up to a death/thrash gallop and the song is pretty cool.  I is a damn fine release from a relatively unknown death metal act, which is great that Repulsive Echo Records brought this to the masses.  When this was originally released it was on Unholy Domain Records.  The packaging is well done with a nicely-layed out booklet.  I am waiting for a full-length from The Psalm, as they are one of the more original acts out there.  Kick Ass!!

[Visit the band's website]

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