The Sarcophagus – Beyond the World’s Illusion

The Sarcophagus is a Black Metal band from Turkey, founded by multi instrumental artist Nahemoth in 1996 and releasing their first demo tape Pagan Storm the next year. After the release of the EP Infernal Hordes of the Ancient Times the band began playing live. The interesting thing about this band is that they started to collaborate with Shining’s lead singer Niklas Kvartforth which contributed with vocals for their second EP Hate Cult and their debut album Towards the Eternal Chaos, both released via Osmose Productions.

The first album was very well received by the underground media. The record had a very good production presenting a catchy melodic black with raw vocals and echoing a dreamy atmosphere. For me personally, this record was a great surprise due to the fact that the musician decided to collaborate with Niklas Kvartforth for this album and doing together a great job.

For the new material Beyond This World’s Illusion the band decided to collaborate with Russian musician Mørkbeast from Todestriebe. This record was released on the 4th of April, being a collaborations between Russia’s Satanath Rercords, American Death Portal Studio, Swedish Fila Sophiae and Brazilian Sphera Noctis Records.

The production is clearly influenced by late 90’s/early 2000’s Swedish black metal scene, and the sound brings a bit with the early Setherial, Dissection and Dark Funeral materials. The record was mastered at Necromorbus Studio in Sweden by Tore Stjerna and the cover art was designed by Italian artist Paolo Girardi, famous for his collaboration with Inquisition.

The compositions are a combination of very  fast  and  raw  pieces  along  with  blast  beats, while  the  solos  and  leads  are  done  in  a  very  melodic  fashion  and  the  vocals  are  mostly  grim. The screams  and  the  songs  also  bring  in  a  great  mixture  of  slow  and  fast  parts  and  the  riffs  also  use  a  great  amount  of  melody. The music is delivered with a professional production which lets you hear pretty much exactly the grimness of Black Metal but also using some modern elements.

The main lyrical themes like Mythology, Ancient Cultures or Mysticism are packed with the Occult Black Metal sound. In my opinion this album deserves special attention as well as the band witch did the effort to collaborate for each full length with musicians form around the word.