Supreme Pain

Divine Incarnation

Written by: MST on 08/06/2011 15:25:58

And so it came to pass that I chose an album for review from a band that I had no prior knowledge of. That hasn't happened since February. Supreme Pain are a death metal band from the Netherlands, and "Divine Incarnation" is their third full-length. What we have here is a prime example of the simple fact that continuous listens to even the simplest kinds of music can be generously rewarding. It only took me a few spins to form my first opinion of "Divine Incarnation": that the sound was awesome but the record was awfully unvaried. A handful listens later I find myself nodding along to every single track and noticing different things constantly.

With Aad Kloosterwaard of Sinister on vocals, the style is very similar to the aforementioned Dutchmen. The album has an aura of darkness to it which makes it sound very sinister indeed. There's emphasis on speed, plenty of energetic riffs, powerful and memorable choruses and easily understandable, yet deep growls. The drums sound like your regular death metal drums in that they blast when appropriate and slow down to a regular energetic death/thrash tempo during some of the verses. Song after song, new song structures and new riffs make sure the listener never has time to relax. Some of the shifts in song structures make me think of Decapitated's Nihility album, in the way it quickly changes from verse to instrumental technical parts to solos to energetic passages and then back to a verse. At first I wanted to compare it to Danish The Cleansing, but I hadn't really heard The Cleansing on record yet; Supreme Pain sound very similar to The Cleansing's live sound, especially in the vocal department. The difference when it comes to their sound on record is that The Cleansing's vocals are layered twice, and Supreme Pain's vocals aren't - thankfully, because the audible vocals are a huge plus.

My new verdict is: there are a few tracks on this album that don't really add anything interesting at all. Those songs are "Spiritual Sickness" and "The Fallen Kingdom". But when it comes to the rest of the album; while some tracks may be better than others (see the Download section) even the tracks that fall through are good. "Putrefied Beauty" would be one of those songs, and there are still plenty of good things in it, like long melodic solos played over blastbeats that sound awesome. With "Divine Incarnation" Supreme Pain have proven that they are a force to be reckoned with when it comes to playing dark, blasting, old-school death metal. They have definitely made a new fan in me.

Download: The Dark Army, Treasonous Disease, Trapped In Heresy, Divine Incarnation
For The Fans Of: Sinister, Morbid Angel, Nile, Nihility-era Decapitated
Listen: MySpace

Release date 27.05.2011
Massacre Records

Related Items | How we score?
Comments
comments powered by Disqus

Legal

© Copyright MMXXIV Rockfreaks.net.