Sacrilegious Throne - Acts of Apostasy

Self Released 2011

1.Acts Of Apostasy 2.Lying Dormant 3.Spreading The Swarm

4.Creating Eternal Darkness

Two man melodic black metal act Sacrilegious Throne certainly know how to craft well written, well-structured and catchy songs. ‘Acts Of Apostasy’ is all of the afore-mentioned being a mid-paced affair, well written melodic black metal at the backbone of the band’s sound with the emphasis being placed heavily on melody. There’s no all-out pummelling BM barrage here, instead intelligent song writing and a willingness to let the music represent the song rather than the speed is more than apparent. ‘Lying Dormant’ is very similar and shows all the traits seen on the opening track. The band start to take on a very ‘Scandinavian BM’ sound and if any comparisons were needed then try to imagine a slower and melodic Dimmu Borgir, vocalist ‘Awrath’ similar sounding to ‘Shagrath’. The tempo is increased slightly into mid-paced territory and blast beats are introduced but used extremely sparsely to inject some variety into the tempo. ‘Spreading The Swarm’ slows things right down, this track being vocally lead and at the forefront, leading the song in a scathing and hateful manner with the music tending to take a back seat at this point. This track could even be described as a ‘narration’ such is its structure. However, half way through the track things change, a pure BM riff is introduced and the drums blast over it, giving the track a whole new feel. This is however short lived, returning to the slower style seen in the first half of the track.

‘Creating Eternal Darkness’ is a mix of everything seen in the three previous tracks; tempos are mixed to add variety. Riffs are varied, moving from extremely melodic to scathing black metal with the drums accompanying each and every riff brilliantly. As this last track fades out an acoustic outro fades in slowly and is a fitting end to a great e.p. Four tracks are probably about the right amount to have as song lengths tended to be quite lengthy, 6:21 being the longest of the four. For all the highlights, the lack of pace to the tracks becomes a minor negative point, especially to those that like some pace in their music. After listening to four tracks that are all around the five minute mark and above and that are all generally slow to mid-paced It sometimes feels that the songs lack direction and a sense of purpose despite being well written and well played. Faster sections are introduced, but sparsely and when introduced they sound great. Having said that it does set the band aside from the BM norm and is certainly unique to the U.K. Definitely worth your attention

7.5 out of 10