No matter what kind of music you play, confidence counts for a hell of a lot. In extreme metal it can even count for more than talent… Just look at the early Hellhammer stuff - the embryonic origins of Celtic Frost, despite their rawness, naivety and inexperience have endeared these early recording to generations of subsequent bands. So what if you have the talent to back it up as well? Well, you could do worse than look to San Francisco’s Kerasphorus as your paradigm.
Considering the band comprises of members of Angelcorpse and Cremation it’s hard to imagine why they wouldn’t be confident. The distinctive vocals and bass of P. Helmkamp are at the forefront of this four track EP of occult Blackened Death-Thrash which instantly recalls his other projects. But this EP is tapping into that raw nerve that chaos peddlers 1349 also hit with their debut.
‘The Abyssal Sanhedrin’ opens the disc recalling a hint of Slayer’s ‘Seasons in the Abyss’ in its opening bars before morphing into an altogether harsher beast. ‘Aosoth Paradigm’ has some nice sharp hooks to it - musically falling towards the Behemoth side of Blackened Death Metal it is a relentless onslaught on the speakers. ‘Disturb the Forethest Star’ draws you back into primordial Black Metal with catchy hooks and some particularly excellent rhythmic work. The final track ‘Swarm Intelligentsia’ is a violent thrashing beast that sees the most ambitious performances on the disc - the bass line is utterly addictive and the guitar is astonishingly sublime - I can see why they saved this one for the end.
This is a very confident and well written EP that really shows of what these guys are able to do. I do think more could be gotten out of them though. A full length album would be a bigger challenge to hold the listeners attention over say ten tracks at four minutes in length each. But I do think Kerasphorus is up to the challenge though.
http://www.myspace.com/kerasphorus
