Year of release: 2018
Label: Non Serviam Records
Rating: 8 / 10
With regularity, I allow myself the hate speeches against the bands like BLOOD OF SERPENT for the sickening unoriginality of their musical, image and ideolocial efforts. They look, sound and say the same. The whole situation with “Sulfur Sovereign” looks so recognizable that it is even funny: the band is Swedish, it looks just like hundreds of their colleagues, playing the same music, mixing and mastering the album at Endarker Studio. As you have already guessed, BLOOD OF SERPENTS is an ordinary Swedish Black Metal with machine-gun blast beats and wild-handed guitars, made according to the precepts of MARDUK, DARK FUNERAL, SETHERIAL, ENTHRONED... the list goes on and on. But here's where the oddity is - for some reason this particular album does not cause my usual rejection. The reason is difficult to determine, because here, as I said, there are not even the slightest glimpses of any new ideas. I suppose the fact is that “Sulfur Sovereign” consists of the infernal balsting for more than 80%. And this is a plus. When WATAIN became fashionable pop black metal band, they did a disservice to the world with their music, diluting the primitive Swedish Black Metal with purely concert chants, hooks and spectacular borrowings from BATHORY. As long as it was not too common, it worked. When everyone started doing this... well, a sad story about a million of identical bands from around the globe started. In BLOOD OF SERPENTS, it seems, there is no such ambition - they are simply destroying everything from start to finish, viciously and stupidly. To be fair, I will say that the second half of the album also gives a bias towards WATAIN-like shit: it all starts with a slow epic “As the temple burns”, and in further compositions you can meet some slow solemn fragments. However it's nothing if you compare it to rock and roll of the more fashionable Swedish bands. "Sulfur Sovereign" is powerful, cool and genuinely malicious. A great album in the style which is jammed along and across.
English (UK) 
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