Malevolent Creation [USA] / Domination Inc. [GR] / Sphinx [UK] review

Malevolent Creation [USA] / Domination Inc. [GR] / Sphinx [UK] review

When we talk about “potential” in the music we review, it usually translates mainly into one of two categories: “loud” and “feeling.” Metal music strives to be powerful and there’s something fascinating about death metal. While its origins are soaked with violence and its imagery is so definitely anti-society, it becomes significantly different over the last decade or so.

This time, was about some great bands, who played before on the local scene, but who never cease to amaze.

Sphinx is a Technical Death Metal band from the UK.

Born from a solo project by the guitarist Bruno Martinho in 2012, Sphinx grew with the addition of Antonio Velez, joining in 2013 as their new drummer.

With the EP “Immortal” Daniel and André joined the band by the ends of 2015, finalising the pre-production of the EP by 2017.

Friends from a long age, with similar tastes in music, games and fantasy lore like Tolkien and Lovecraft, they merged and developed Sphinx together through the years.

With punishing technical riffs, low drops and brutal guttural vocals, Sphinx delivers fantastic tales and medieval stories with serious heaviness, energy and aggressiveness.

 

Domination Inc. was a big surprise for me. Their show was energic and incredibly engaging. Domination Inc. hailing from Athens,  they are filling the void that splits modern groove from powerful thrash and is heralding a new age of heavy metal.

They released their debut album “Infants of thrash” in 2015, and after four years, they released “Memoir 414”, the second album. Their debut album had a great old-school thrash sound and for this new album, they kept some of that feel while making it heavier and a bit more modern. They worked with former Septic Flesh drummer Fotis Benardo at Devasoundz Studios, and the mastering was done by Henrik Udd (Architects, At The Gates, Dimmu Borgir and many more).

Malevolent Creation is one of those bands that you think about when you mention death metal. 

In case you missed the first shows that this band held in Bucharest, I can tell from the start that their performance is complexity disguised as simplicity; at first glance, it feels like a simple death metal act which is a bit wrong.

On vocals with Lee Wollenschlaeger, replacing Brett Hoffmann (who died in 2018), the band took the stage with the classic song “Infernal Desire”, taken from 1995 “Eternal”. From the setlist, I remember “Living in Fear”, “Blood of the Fallen” and, of course, “Multiple Stab Wounds”.

United under the theme of constant violence, Malevolent Creation‘s music, however, takes different forms throughout the songs.

Thus, with this show, Malevolent Creation has relied on solid aesthetic foundations that have died in the eyes of other bands over the past twenty years. The new album, released in 2019, “The 13th Beast” is appreciated and represents the logical continuation of the band’s career. With an even more precise sound, a better-written record, and a stronger overall coherence, the new album is a solid death metal concept. After 12 albums going back and forth, the band has completely matured into their truest sound, this lives up to all their other albums. If you’re a Malevolent Creation fan, this will never fail to grab your attention. I liked especially the guitar, It’s exactly how pure death metal guitar should sound; open, expansive and unburied. 

 

Thanks to this opus, Malevolent Creation is becoming one of the most important figures of the death metal scene.

Setlist:

  1. Infernal Desire
  2. Living in Fear
  3. Blood of the Fallen
  4. Manic Demise
  5. Release the Soul
  6. Mandatory Butchery
  7. Alliance or War
  8. The Will to Kill
  9. Eve of the Apocalypse
  10. Coronation of Our Domain
  11. Multiple Stab Wounds

Full  photo gallery HERE

Photocredits: Gheorghe Paraschiv

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