Pazuzu – Oath of Unholy Sacrilege [Compilation]

This Costa Rican band plays old school sick Death Metal / Death-Doom. I had a good time jamming this album, it’s a very “Rock and Roll” kind of Death Metal. This is a compilation of material previously released as splits, with a bonus (live) Nihilist cover thrown in there to round the collection out. No modern wank-metal here boys – just some old school sounding ‘gravestone and shovel’ Metal. Parts of the recordings fidelity on some material is just the right amount of echo/reverb like they are playing just outside of a cave entrance(!). Expect a fair amount of mid tempo parts mixed in with quicker blasting sections and then the stylistically obligatory “church bell slow groove cemetery crawl” type Death/Doom meat and potatoes riffs of course. Alright let’s dig in.

Straight up biggest thing off the top is that these guys are an Autopsy clone (like a band they share a split with Anatomia) and I mean that in a good way because I love Autopsy too. I’m half joking (not about loving Autopsy) – they do have some different sections that sound influenced by a slew of different Death Metal bands including the Swedish scene (note the cover) but in my brain these dudes most likely have listened to ‘Mental Funeral’ a decent amount of times together hanging out and chilling before or after rehearsal.

Stylistically the way the drummer plays his hi-hat is badass in a way I’m not capable of describing properly, but I like to imagine buddy was wearing sunglasses when he was laying this down in the stu, it just sounds really heavy somehow. Maybe he’s hitting that sucker hard as fuck, maybe it’s the way he’s playing combined with the way it’s mic’d up it sounds great whatever it is. Bass has a nice rumbly tone, fairly chunky. A bit more jagged on some tracks due to it being different recordings. Bass gets a moment or two to shine on its own and holds it down nicely and meshes with the guitars well. Good solos nice shredding in a Slayer-influenced way mixed with a lot of energy. Vocals are mostly a heavy deep bellow-y growl spewing over the monstrous pile of music and serve to loom above the music and vomit forth as needed.

‘Ceremony of Inception’ is very cool and a good example of this band ripping. There’s these stompy mid tempo sections and these crazy whammy bar dives dropping out of nowhere like a corpse in a noose swinging from left ear to right ear on a part, some good techniques going on.

There’s plenty “sneaking around the graveyard at night riffs” that made me feel like I was a graverobber going about my morbid task like Dr. Frankenstein and that’s a pretty good indication of the style of Death Metal on display here. I hope they release more material soon!