Desolator – Sermon of Apathy

Band: Desolator
Title: Sermon of Apathy
Label: Black Lion Records
Release date: 04 September 2020
Country: Sweden
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

Even if September is only about halfway through, it feels as if a lot of new albums have been released and for the most I have heard it’s been some good stuff. I suppose everyone is keeping themselves active while there isn’t much else going on, and it certainly is paying off.

On the 4th of September, the Swedish group Desolator released their second full-length album titled “Sermon of Apathy” and it’s safe to say that I had a pleasant, violent filled black metal destruction afternoon this past Saturday when I gave it a go.

“Portal Tomb” really kicks it off in an old school way with a modern vibe as the death metal sound carries the modern-sounding production, specially the way that the drums sound. Quite tight and clean, going from fast manners over to slower parts that include a lot of melody and melancholy. Nothing rotten or dirty here, and if anything, I would refer to this as melodic old school death metal. “Adversarial Doctrine” follows closely where the bass is clearly audible, showing off some impressive skills which then continues with “Creatures of Habit”. It includes quite the disturbing melody which builds up the track and along with the vocals it brings forth this sort of swaggering groove.

“Methods of Self-deception” includes a clean guitar opening with a chord progression that sounds both beautiful and awkward. Most of the time it’s moderate in speed and the emphasis is on groove and power, nevertheless some progressive is squeezed in here. So far this album has been very widely spread and finding words to describe it is a challenge as you get a lot on your plate at the same time and it’s mostly all different from each other.

The guitar struggles a bit to keep up with the pace of “Vaticide” and yet overall this group is going quite the job. “The Great Law of the Dead” closes the cycle with a pack of melodies mixed with full-on death metal including faster and slower paces. This is how it has been for the entire album, which, as I have been going on about, is a good thing.

However, it does make the album a bit too unfocused. Every song is good, but together as an album, it tends to be a little bit too much all over the place. But I am excited to see what this group will come up with in the future, I just hope it will be a bit tidier. 7.5/10 Julia Katrin

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