### Spiritual Holocaust: Salute the death

#### 13/01/11 || Love Lagerkvist

“Death metal demo from Finland” was how Spiritual Holocaust’s first demo Salute the death was described when I took the job to review this not-so-label-sent-but-still album. As of the time of writing, the band have a whopping 43 total plays on their MySpace, which gets them in line with a “Metalocalypse”-clip I uploaded to YouTube and then got removed by the copyright Nazis a mere 4 hours later. Good times.

Were where we? Oh right, Spiritual Holocaust’s “death metal demo”. Before I turned it on, I just assumed they wouldn’t be on the level of awesome of country mates Demigod or Demilich, but to my pleasant surprise I where wrong. Because would you know it, this stuff is actually kind of good. Like, nearly actually really kind of good. Not really something you would expect with that album artwork now is it?

What we have here is exactly 18:26 of mid tempo death metal darkness spread out on four tracks with equally evil names. There is most definitely an old-school vibe to it all (just listen to the grim fucken guitar solo part in “Left for the rats” and you’ll see what I mean), with feeling and a lethal groove being on top of the priority list. The songwriting here is surprisingly good for what I believe is a first time band – I couldn’t actually find any information about any of the members, so we’ll just have to draw assumptions here – with songs that keeps the listener interested while still flowing like Satan’s personal blood river (that’s the one next to the seamen fountain).

The riffing here is a tossup between chugging grooves and the wicked leads that turned us all on to this shit in the first place. While it’s not the most original stuff all of the time, it’s doesn’t make them any less fuckwin. As far as the rhythm section goes the drums are pretty much what you’d expect from a mid tempo kind of affair while the bass is surprisingly audible. Growling here stays in the Jörgen Sandström territory of lows most of the time with the occasional change to a slightly higher pitch.

One small gripe I have with “Salute of death” is parts of the production. Or rather, the sound of the guitars as they are really lacking in the crunch department at times. The drums, vocals and even bass sound all pretty darn great in the mix, but the guitars just doesn’t cut it at times. Not that it’s a big issue, and considering that this is in fact a demo, so not having the worlds best production is pretty much to be expected.

Overall, Spiritual Holocaust’s “Salute the death” is easily one of those hidden metal gems buried under piles of rotten melodeath and cheap manwhores. Now all they have to do is produce an actual album, and Finland would finally have a new metal heavyweight that’s not based on the Amorphis book of wanking tips.

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Nope
- Website: Spiritual Holocaust MySpace
- Band
- Growler Dude: vocals
- Guitar Guy: guitar
- Bass Boy: bass
- Drummer Dude: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Salute the Death
- 02. Left for the Rats
- 03. Primal Disease
- 04. Mass Grave