I'm getting hit with all kinds of black metal bands I had never heard of before lately. As a disclaimer I should explain that my interests in black metal usually lie more in the symphonic or atmospheric side of things than the straight forward blackened death metal sound this band is going for. However regardless this band definitely showed up to the studio with serious intent for this album. At only 38 minutes they seem to have been intent on shoving as many riffs into such a short album without overstaying their welcome and I think it was a good choice. The first thing that comes to mind while listening to this album is the sound, the guitars sound extra thick and meaty though sadly the rest of the band didn't get such wonderful treatment. I'm going to get this out of the way, I'm not wild about Luciano's vocals, I know plenty of people who will enjoy his vocals more than I did, but I don't really enjoy his delivery and the production isn't doing him any justice. I don't like criticizing a musician's skills because I know what kind of effort mentally and physically it takes to put yourself out there like this so I can only hope that the mix/production are what's ruining the vocals for me.

Moving on to the album itself, like I said before I really dig the sound of the guitars, drums and bass, but as far as the songwriting goes none of the songs really stand out individually. I listened to this album several times in a row to get a feel for it, and maybe it's my fault but none of the songs stuck in my head, as soon as the album ended, I couldn't remember which song was which for the life of me. To my mind it's because all the songs essentially follow the same formula, as well as seemingly a lot of the same chord progressions. There were no real hooks, to drag me in, so the main thing I ended up focusing on was the guitar work. One song where the instrumentation stood out to me a little bit more was "Where Shadows of Death May Lie". It's got a little more variety in tempos than the rest of the album and the guitar solo is fantastic. It starts off and ends with some sludgy death riffs that I ate right up, no melody to speak of, but hey Luciano and Nathan are excellent guitar players and they nail the perfect tone of mid 90s blackened death metal so kudos to them on that. I also really liked "Suffering Cage", it has more of a melancholic, doomy feeling before launching into intense riffage and blast beats. One of the things I found most of the songs lacking is emotional impact, they largely stick to the straightforward black metal rage, but I have found that when black metal can develop an emotional core and embrace the sadness and despair rather inherent in the genre as a whole that is when it reaches the next level, from good to great. If anything, I wished "Suffering Cage" was a little longer, I'll admit I'm a big prog fan so I could always have longer more intricate songs, but at least the album ends on a high note with "Worms in Disguise" being a fun and speedy track to close things out with.

In the end I think I'd call this album a mixed bag. Lots of elements to enjoy, but a few larger detractors that made it hard for me to stay immersed the whole time, which for a 38-minute album is unfortunate. This is yet another short black metal album where I feel like they could have combined ideas to make fewer, longer songs and it would have worked better, but of course that is all based on my own taste. I'm sure more seasoned blackened death metal fans will find a lot to enjoy about this album. This is definitely not a complex album, but if you're looking for a slab of brutal, blackened death metal to work out to or something similar than you could do a lot worse than SUTURA'S Dawn of Cursed Souls.