Review: A fusion between radicalized old school death metal and the doom metal that was just appearing as an alternative to the faster aesthetic emerging from the ruins of the past decade, Blasphereion create slow motion collisions between melody and an insistent rhythm; while they succeed in achieving a descent into the hollow enveloping of dark atmosphere, their consistency often reveals the fundamental simplicity of this work as an agent of static more than active artistic statement. Resonant vocals burp alongside riffstreams of power chords strummed at the same frequency and changing most often on the beat, rendering an affect like that of Asphyx or Miasma hybridized with American dirge-death such as Infester or middle-period Master.
Lead guitars are intricate but unlike the chaotic solos of the day which attempted to break cadence with a junkyard of kinked and tangential rhythms, the guitar playing that takes point stays within the largest regular structure in any rhythmic segment, giving it the designed improvisational feel of classical guitar and the corresponding highlighting effect in lieu of the frenetic scattershot that is more common. Vocals and drums guide guitars with regular rhythms, the vocals constituting a layer to percussion, but with lead guitar similarly taking an accentual role, the voice of rhythm guitar is entrusted with the excavation and development of melody, which it does through songs of a handful of riffs designed to complement one another in a continuing line of developing sound: this technique allows Blasphereion to create their cavernous but melodious atmosphere which suspends audience disbelief of the non-literal.
Riff construction is reminiscent of Ungod who, although writing black metal, used the same style of creating wraparound constructions for four-note melodies and thus erecting an incessant wall of fastpicked power chords flowing together like fuzzy overtones of an upright bass played behind a jet engine. Like much of early death metal, "Rest in Peace" is massively repetitive but as its aim is an ambient sensation instead of a discrete articulation, this intrudes less than it could. Still, especially as the album wears on, the thinness cannot be concealed, and it is for this reason that despite some of the powerful composition on this album it has been like so many things swallowed by time, much as repetition erodes memory.
