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Nephasth > Immortal Unholy Triumph > Reviews
Nephasth - Immortal Unholy Triumph

Let's see what they can come up with next time - 78%

erebuszine, April 28th, 2013

Let's be honest here, when it comes to the new style of Brazilian death metal, all these bands are, at one time, or another, just referencing Krisiun. Rebaelliun are starting to break out of that mold now (their latest, Annihilation, is an above-average record, really listenable), but the rest of the bands following in the wake of the insane Kolesne brothers still have a very heavy debt to pay off before they can break into more original, open water. When one band launches itself into the world scene and makes a name for itself (who toured more than Krisiun over the last few years?), the groups that follow up the ladder behind their lead often have this problem: witness Vader and Behemoth and the rest of the Polish scene, for example. This is not to say that Nephasth have a problem handling their instruments, or that they lack talent. Their playing and overall sound is immaculately polished, almost too clean and tight in certain places. I prefer my death metal with a little rawness. That's beside the point, however... this band can fall into stale derivation, but they can also soar when they just put their heads down and lock into a massive groove, a sustained, anthemic blast. Now that Krisiun stumbled and dropped the ball with their last album, Ageless Venemous, it's young bands like this that are going to rush in and try to steal the limelight. While that album, Krisiun's massively disappointing opus I mean, mainly suffered from a lack of originality, insight, depth (it's difficult to write really well-orchestrated, multi-layered material when you only have one guitarist, and when you're on tour for most of the year), and an atrocious production, this album here suffers in turn from hero worship. Serious hero worship. It's useless to try to go into direct specifics about Nephasth's sound or their style because, at this point, Krisiun and Rebaelliun own the patent for it. Let's describe it instead, as it appears everywhere: constant double bass and little rolling fills on the part of the drummer, clean triggered isolated kick triplets, the usual, guitar parts that revolve between pounding power chord breaks and minor-chord enhanced tremelo-picking that sounds at times like the "atonal" eerieness of Cannibal Corpse, extremely lean, muscular muted rhythms, staccato (always exactly in line with the drummer's snare) short riff segments, and ethereal, outer-space soloing. The vocals change over the course of this album - if you really pay attention, it'll be mildly diverting for you, but usually they sound just like Camargo: that harsh, hoarse, monotone bark and growl. As for the bass, I can't even hear it. Nothing out of the ordinary there! If only more death metal bands really knew how to take advantage of the added dimension strong bass playing adds to this kind of music!

Maybe what separates this unholy gathering from others like Abhorrence is their more traditional-death metal influences, the way they also reference (like I was saying above) American entities. I don't know. To be honest, I have to stretch my listening abilities to their utmost powers of analysis to hear differences in these Brazilian bands. It's actually remarkable, if you think about it, how close these groups sound to each other. How is that even possible? I like this band, but... after thirty-odd minutes of blasting and similar riffs even the most hardcore Brazilian fanatics will probably be feeling a little jaded, their eyes clouding over, their ears numb.

And so I'll finish this review the same way I finished the one of Severance that I wrote earlier this morning: it's a good band, they have obvious talent, I just wish it was a little more original. Oh well. Let's see what they can come up with next time.

UA

Erebus Magazine
http://erebuszine.blogspot.com

Brutal pleasures - 89%

CHRISTI_NS_ANITY8, March 3rd, 2009

The first Nephasth opus came out in 2001 and it can be considered the umpteenth example of the goodness of the Brazilian scene when it comes to the brutal death metal. Immortal Unholy Trinity is a furious example of musical extremism where all the death metal influences from lots of bands collide to create a huge impact. The production is a bit different from the one we can find on the following album, being a bit darker and a bit less well-produced. However, everything you need in brutality is here and the sounds are far more brutal and pounding than the ones we can find for lots of other bands on the underground.

The guitars are just schizophrenic since the opener, “The Wrath will be the Fire”. The tempo changes lots of times conserving the right impulsive touch, through lots of blast beats and really nasty bass drums overtures. The tremolo picking is perfectly mixed with the palm muting to sustain the various furious restarts. Inevitably, quite heavy influences come from Krisiun and Rebaelliun, however, few parts display a quite personal approach to the genre with few less brutal sections that point on the gloominess of the instruments. The guitars on these parts are far less impulsive and they announce few solos to give the right atmosphere of decadence, like on “Screams for the Supreme Force”.

Even the mid-paced parts on fast songs like “Useless Cross” and “Flames Triumph” have something that the other Brazilian bands never did before and there we can truly notice the important of a band like Deicide. The style is evidently bound to that band and also the vocals seem different in their growling tonality. Thanks to the briefness of the tracks here, we can really enjoy the essence of the sheer brutality that doesn’t bore and despite that, the structures are always quite complex without losing anything in catchiness and impact. I cannot even imagine how many riffs the guitarists put out during the length of this album because it’s something impressive.

Lots of parts also show a quite evident thrash worshipping for the riffs (“False Pride” among the others) and this just makes me jolly. All in all, this is an album to discover because it can be perfect for anyone who loves brutal death with a personal touch.

Nephasth - 85%

AtteroDeus, January 11th, 2005

What surprised me about this album is the fact that it's both Brazilian and NOT trying to copy what other foremost Brazilian bands that have gone before them have done (ie Krisiun, Sepultura, Sarcofago...).

Maybe because it's easy to just write off the majority of a countries bands as sounding like their most famous exports, but I see little here to compare Nephasth as probably the biggest Brazilian extreme metal band, Krisiun.

It's probably just my own personal, untrained no doubt, ears but the feel you get when you listen to this album is not only of the brutality you'd want from the album, but somewhat more a kinship with bands like Houwitser (certainly in terms of overall aesthetic) than the ultra precision of Krisiun.

By that I mean that the band seem more focused on the brutality with a sprinkling of groove - though the latter not remotely on par with say Insision's 'Revealed And Worshipped' for amount of groove (aka "old school riffs").

I personally don't think that the songs sound definably different enough to warrant a minute detail analytic breakdown of each song, and quite frankly that would serve to be too boring for the kind of person that'd be interested in the band IMO.

Whether or not this band is doing anything particularly new or original is lost on me, as neither do I care nor do I think it remotely important as you can usually never have too much of a bad thing - unless it itself is done in a bad way.

That's enough twisting and turning of sentances designed to try and make me sound as if I know what I'm talking about.

To simplify (and conclude), if you like bands such as Houwitser (circa 'Rage Inside The Womb') and/or want to further extend your foray into Brazilian bands, then Nephasth more than deserve your attention.

Not quite perfect, but better than a lot of the supposedly excellent (read: overrated) death metal albums of recent years... just be thankful you haven't got a lisp when it comes to pronouncing their name.

The forgotten one - 84%

Thorlock, October 2nd, 2003

Don't let the title of this disc deceive you - this is not Dimmu Borgir's hidden treasures Part III. This is fucking DEATHMETAL! So, go away wuss. Run home and cry to mama!

Now, over to the album. Most people always talk about Krisin, Rebaelliun and Abhorrence when it comes to Brazil and deathmetal. Why the fuck no one ever mentions this band is a question to me! This band play some pretty good deathmetal in the usual brazilian-vein riffwise but they're different in one big aspect: They've toned down the blastbeats quite dramatically. Sure, they definitely have blastbeats and those are quite widely used. But in comparison to let's say, Krisiun, who is a big and long blastfest Nephasths use of them is quite limited. Don't get me wrong here folks, I definitely love Krisiun when I'm in the right mood for some ultra-brutal monotonous blasting, but this is music most people can digest without risking a week-long headache.

The songmaterial is rather strong throughout this whole disc, and most of the songs have something that catch your attention and make you wanna listen to it again. The tempo is pretty varied, although most songs are faster ones that undoutebly will kick your nuts in. But the thing is that even if the tempo is high most of the time, more or less all of the songs have parts in them where the tempo is changed, and you get a small and much welcomed break in the vicous speed / blastattack. It's even a bit groovy at times! The best thing about this whole album is the sound on the drums though, I love every single bit of it. Top notch deathmetal production from the very beginning to the end.

So, by reading this you'll most certainly wonder why I don't give this album a higher score? Well, while it's good shit it is not anything groundbreaking or anything we haven't heard a hundred times before from other scenes than the brazilian. But the score I gave is rather high anyway (don't give every single goddamn album I listen to and like "100%!" just because I enjoy it the first time it's plopped into my stereo) and this album deserves it.

Simply put: A really good album worth picking up if you see it and if you're into deathmetal. 'Nuff said!