THEMPEST „Spiritual Depravation”

Music: death/doom metal
http://www.myspace.com/thempest
Country: Poland
Duration: 24:32 (4 tracks)
Cool Songss: Temple Of Sorrow and United In Hate

THEMPEST – four-man band from Szczytno (Poland), playing old school death metal with doom influences. Sounds interesting? Yes, it does. The band had been formed in 2006, three years later, in 2009, they released debut CD (and so far only one) – SPIRITUAL DEPRAVATION EP.

Since the first seconds of the recording, we can hear guitar riffs filled with awesome vibe, perhaps without technical fireworks in NECROPHAGIST’s style, but trimmed with several nice harmonies. Another big advantage are singers, on the album we hear two of them, each with a rather different growling style. They sound very good, together they co-operate perfectly. For me, it’s an influence of the modern death metal, but it definitely fits the music played by THEMPEST. In ballad called TEMPLE OF SORROW, we can also hear some nice clean vocals. As you can see, the disc lasts nearly 25 minutes and it has only four songs. So here comes a simple question – isn’t it boring? It is the most erroneous conclusion. Apart from last song’s outro (it’s also whole recording’s outro), which is quite boring, there is nothing to accuse of. THEMPEST’s members have a quite good playing technique, though some riffs sound a bit monotonous, and the drummer is not always aggressive enough. The guitar solos sound great. Especially the last solo is hard to forget, moreover, that song is the strongest element of the disc. It contains clean vocals, awesome guitar harmonies, and what I’ve already mentioned, that cool solo, even boring outro does not spoil the effect. Samples at the beginnings of third and fourth tracks are also very nice themes, I don’t know where they come from, but they are awesome anyway.

In conclusion, we have to deal with death metal in the old style, but with numerous slower parts, melodic riffs, beautiful ballad, and even clean vocals. It sounds like a strange mix, but the end result is surprisingly good, especially for band from the underground. All songs are very good, each presents a bit different style from the others. The quality of recordings is pretty good, CD artwork is a thing that I really like. I recommend this EP for death and doom fans, and anyone who appreciates an open framework for combining various genres and styles in order to obtain their own unique one.

note: 9/10

Tracklist

Fake Repentance
She Is My Doom
United In Hate
Temple Of Sorrow

Line-up

Szakal – guitar/vocals
Ajgor – guitar
Kristof- bass
Piter – drums