It is like taking a side trip into the heart of a barren catacomb or deep within the grounds of a mausoleum all forgotten and lost right into the belly of the down under, the abode of the dead, falling lower into the abysmal ground where the temperatures rise and your body slowly burns into ash. Similar to reading through ancient texts of a foreboding truth, anxious on what will be found after deciphering the wonders or curses that may be concealed within the markings. Think about a collection of texts and cryptic writings from the core of the Sheol, a Hebrew term that several of us define it as the domicile of Hell itself. Two chaps for the UK, attaining the emblem of SHEOL or שאול (Hebrew), bearing initials that only they know what those mean, built their old school Death Metal foundation upon the mysteries of the buried beneath. With the release of "Sepulchral Ruins Below The Temple", via Iron Bonehead Productions (soon to be issued by Invictus Productions as well), there is a portrayal of the true definition of Death Metal music and how it should actually sound, without modern trending, blasphemous, grisly and untamed. The pair reached, though not in praises judging by this recording, to the similar position of early MORBID ANGEL, DEICIDE, AUTOPSY and MALEVOLENT CREATION among with ancient epitaphs. However, as it would appear, largely like of many of them out there in the past and present, the band's attitude is solely based on sorrowful enactments and atmospheric exhalations of early 70's BLACK SABBATH.

Galvanizing with the merits of old school Death Metal inscriptions, SHEOL bash forward with the ultimate filthy riffery and energetic pumping rhythms, reliving the evilized past in such a manner that it will let you feel as if you are back in that era when Death Metal began sounding its first tainted echoes of depression and gravely anguish. There is a certain spiritual being within the material, like a call of an ancient entity back from the dead and into the land of the living, from the ground up. Inflating with meaty Doom / Death Metal riffs while throwing several melodic blackened tremolo appetizers and too few fast paced mayhemic soloing of a decent level, the SHEOL duo wrote notable songs that truly inspirited me to head back to the dusted forsaken Death Metal albums of late 80's, emphasizing that rawness has its own type of glimmer. "Sepulchral Ruins Below the Temple", though heavily rough as the entire album, has nits and pins that produced an epic experience, bombastically energetic and severely sinewy with enough Doom to pound the masses. There is also the neat DARKTHRONE cover of "Cromlech" that paid a fair tribute to the Norse beasts, vehement as it should be, SHEOL provided an enticing version that is a bit heated than the frostiness of the original.

I guess this sort of album isn't enough to truly appease the hunger of an old schooler to this kind of Death Metal absorbed by the heresy of Doom magnetism. The Brits forged an interesting output, although a partial of it turned out a bit overplayed and sometimes heftily commonplace for the period. It would be interesting to check out their later tunes.