I reviewed the debut album, Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, from Colorado’s doom/death outfit, Spectral Voice, in 2017. Seeing the band on their tour with Undergang, prior to the album, was a really awesome experience, especially since the members of Spectral Voice are also members of Blood Incantation.

After various splits etc…since the debut album, Spectral Voice finally released their second album and Sparagmos has us slogging through 4 songs and with a 45-minute run time, well this does ask a lot of the listener, does it not? The band also retains their signature doom/death approach, however, they have added numerous elements of funeral doom, which is my least favorite form of doom metal, due to the slogging drone of that type of music. The album cover of Sparagmos – the branch of creepy skulls, is befitting for this album.

At close to 12 minutes “Be Cadaver” opens the album with some atmospheric moments and it’s not until a minute later that the music fully forms and yes….the funeral doom, is evident, but definitely some Winter influence going on with the slow AF drums, and this is heavy…but droning as well. The song is in no hurry… let’s put it that way. The vocals come in and are cavernous in nature, as the pained and anguished vocals take hold of the listener and the gutturals come in quite nicely too. Slow, pained, and deliberate the song changes speed at the 6-minute marker, with the faster-paced riffing, but the song is still pretty slow until the song speeds up to a fast pace and this moment has a dISEMBOWELMENT feel and the tempo shift breaks up the monotony, which came before this. The dirgy funeral doom moments return and the atmospheric moments return to round this sucker out.

 

At 7:39 “Sinew Censer” is the shortest number on this album and begins eerily similar to dISEMBOWELMENT and the speed picks up pretty quickly with excellent vocals, alongside some vocal phaser effects. This song pounds pretty damn hard and the simple drum patterns work for this type of musical speed. The song slows down around the 2-minute mark and the dirge funeral death doom metal erupts….so very slow….with pained and whispered gutturals and some cool isolated double bass drums, at times. The song picks up the pace once again at a furious double-pounding speed – a most excellent song.

“Death’s Knell Rings in Eternity”, at close to 13 minutes, closes the album out with a very epic buildup. Nice drums – – this section played live, will go over nicely and I love the guitar riffing on this section. Entering the picture is that funeral doom portion…droning….it’s a mixed bag for me. Fans of Funeral Doom will go bonkers over these moments….for me, just too darn droning and hypnotic with the speed not changing. The song becomes more epic and atmospheric in the middle and it’s very heavy and sounds quite evil. The album ends similar, in how it began, with the atmospherics.

Spectral Voice’s debut, Eroded Corridors of Unbeing, I prefer quite a lot more to Sparagmos. Sparagmos does not move as much as the debut and the excessive added funeral doom moments, are just not my thing. I can take Funeral Doom in small spurts, but they are incorporated more than I would have liked on this release. The music is heavy and at times the epic atmospherics of the doom-death are pretty darn killer, as well as some of the tempo shifts, however, there are not enough of those moments, for me to keep going back to this album. If you love funeral doom, this will be right up your alley.

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