### Septycal Gorge: Erase the insignificant

#### 22/06/11 || The Duff

Italy isn’t a particularly well known country for its metal bands; if it is, then it’s more often than not for its bad ones: Lacuna Coil, The Denial (who I still haven’t reviewed after a year, haha), that other band that harassed GD some months back talking about ass-taking and cock-slamming, I’m sure an handful of others. Then you have your halfway decent bands, like Novembre, but if you’re going to hold a drab doom band (meaning Katatonia-esque, not necessarily as in poor music) as representative of the metal scene to your country, well, that’s like masturbating to blowbang scenes and then complaining every time you ejaculate to the sight of a man’s nutting-face – it’s time for you to change country of residence; there’s different varieties of porno out there, my boy. Hour of Penance used to be incredible but quickly became generic since their last, highly-anticipated effort “Paradogma”. Sticking to the brutal death metal side of the spectrum, although less Behemoth and Nile and more Disgorge and… er… Disgorge, we have two up-and-comers that you read of a lot perusing forums – Septycal Gorge and Vomit the Soul.

Where the latter is more of a slam-band (so for fans of Devourment and… er… Devourment), Septycal Gorge take after Deeds of Flesh. I have come around to digging the shit out of this style of technical death metal, but it’s become impossible to find gems amidst a plethora of run-of-the-mill unless the band receives insane levels of promotion which already is highly unusual for this particular scene – I discovered Septycal Gorge simply by hunting all the bands remotely affiliated with Grindethic Records, and discovering them alongside outfits such as Cerebral Bore and Embryonic Depravity. I can safely say that although not close to the most original, these Italians are passionate and a worthy addition to the underground brutal death metal class.

In my opinion, production is often what fans of more palatable metal shy away from when it comes to brutal death metal, but on “Erase the Insignificant”, we find something close to Disavowed’s “Stagnated Existence” – this means everything comes through crystal clear, with sharp guitars and very prominent bass and drums, speed-boat kicks and all (for a guy who’s never been heard of, Davide Billia matches big names such as Romain Goulon terrifically, although the style could be accused of emotionless speed precision and nothing else). Can’t complain despite the very rare occasion of (I think) intentional clipping during some of the breakdowns, the intended effect to blow out your speakers but I’m left unimpressed by how clumsy the move when the riffs are slam-simple and not worthy of the sound of an atomic bomb hitting your living room floor (wow, how does my writing remain so consistently sensational?).

The musicianship is everything you would expect: Deeds of Flesh perfected the dry, sterile, precise-as-can-be style of death metal, Septycal Gorge are simply following suit; the music is a mixture of blast-sections, tech-death mayhem with palm-mutes, tremolo, hammer-ons/offs, tapping, slams, triplets, break-downs, the whole gamut except soloing, and thankfully two or three riffs per song that really stand-out amidst the chaos – Septycal Gorge are heavy, they’re not expecting to be compared to Obscura any time soon, but they play with an uncompromising voracity even if the track-structures aren’t anything new and the music heartless (as is always the case if you’re following in the footsteps of Disgorge), all with a very revealing clarity; they have what it takes to compete if well produced goregrind brutal death metal (say wha-?) is your thing.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Permeated Records
- Website: Septycal Gorge MySpace
- Band
- Mariano Soma: vocals
- Marco Losano: guitars
- Diego Riccobene: guitars
- Claudio de Rossa: bass
- Davide Billia: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Deformed Heretic Impalement
- 02. Lobotomia
- 03. Redneck Slanderous Mutation
- 04. Aprioristic Discharge
- 05. Forgotten Faces of Human Prism
- 06. Psychotic Redemption
- 07. Confronting the Dead
- 08. Elegy for the Wretched
- 09. Speeches of Inadequacy