Album Review: Epikoros – Spear of Vengeance
Band: Epikoros
Album: Spear of Vengeance
Label: Independent
Release date: October 11th, 2025
Country: USA
Format reviewed: High-quality digital recording
Album Review: Epikoros – Spear of Vengeance by Ioana
If any of you remember my previous review of Teufelsdom’s full length debut, you may also remember that I mentioned that I ended up writing it after being approached by the band on said topic. Well, this happens to be the case for Epikoros too, and it seems that I once again find myself with a mission. And what can I say, it was not by any means an unpleasant mission.
“Spear of Vengeance” is the band’s debut demo, so, by any means, I couldn’t have had any sort of previous idea of what was in store for me. By all means, I could’ve woken up listening to more or less anything that can be described as “black metal”, despite the fact that the band’s self description as “misanthropic black metal” more or less gave me an idea of the specific type of approach I was looking at. That being said, it did not do much to paint a preview in my head (that seems to be the case more or less every time I dive into a new band, but anyway… that says more about my terrible foresight than anything.) Nevertheless, I shall cease with this nonsensical introduction and actually do what I set out to do, aka, describe the actual music.
The demo itself is short and incredibly straightforward. The longest track is 3.10 minutes long, and the overall approach to songwriting denotes a clear death metal and even thrash metal influence going on. This is particularly obvious not just when talking about song length and structure, but also when it comes to, for example, the drumming. It is incredibly intense, yet it is closer stylistically to blackened death metal acts such as Belphegor, Hate or Behemoth rather than more punishing black metal acts such as Marduk or Tsjuder. The thrash influence is much more subtle, showing up mostly in the form of guitar work embellishments, such as the solo on the last track, “For The Fallen (Damn Few)”: short and fast, it vanishes before you even notice it properly. The vocal performance is interesting as well because it features the trademark black metal screeching, along with some stranger effects that lean closer to modern death metal than anything… strange choice, but… I guess it works in the context.
The aspect that surprised me most however, is the production. Given that “Spear of Vengeance” is a demo, I expected it to sound accordingly, so to say: raw, unpolished, chaotic, etc. What I did not expect however was for it to be produced more or less exactly like a modern death metal album. Even by full length standards, it is extremely overproduced. I first believed that to be just a matter of first impression, but no. This record has, without a shadow of a doubt, a very out of pocket production that just didn’t do it for me. Plus, considering the way the music is composed, it drowns out a lot of the grit of the music. I am not saying this as someone who hates good production, I do not, and by any means can black metal be done extremely well with it, but this is too much, at least for my taste.
That being said, “Spear of Vengeance” is without a doubt an interesting start to Epikoros, and despite my critiques on matters such as the production, I am nevertheless curious to see where this project is headed. So, all I can say at this point is… wait and see. 7.5/10
7.5/10 Victory is possible
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