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Aside being an album with an insanely long tongue twister for a title, Pandemonic Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation is the first full-length album from the Black/Death Metal act Prosanctus Inferi. Don't be confused, however, as this band has issued a debut release prior to this, a split 7" EP with the band Witch Tomb. On this release, Prosanctus Inferi has changed up the sound a little bit from the aforementioned EP and the two demos. Here, we are given an album that gives off a sound that is chaotic, heavy, and could really use some vocal modulation. If you were to picture a Brutal Death Metal act, such as Mexico's Disgorge, and remove all the stereotypical pig queels while adding a Black Metal aspect to the riffs, as well as a more traditional lower gutteral vocal style, then you'd have an idea as to what this release will sound like. Much of the music on this release is excellent and gives off a rather dark and sometimes chaotic sound, almost as if a ritual deep in the woods has gone awry. "Cauterizing Unholy Lesions" is the perfect example of this. The track is a rather slower track as far as the drums go, while the guitars seem a little faster, keeping in good faith with the traditional Black Metal guitar playing. This may seem like a bad idea, but it all works out well as the music often switches between a slower and quicker pace, but not so much or as abruptly to ruin the flow of the song. While these tracks do bring a bit of an ambience with them through the raw production quality and enchanting, sometimes complex guitars, it's the faster tracks that really stand out on this release. "Fratricide in the Holy House of God" is a fast-paced track that features music that does jump around quite a lot, but at the same time shows off the talent that Prosanctus Inferi has. Not only do the changes in the music all sound natural and go fluidly with one another, it's all clearly part of the original structure and intent for the song to bring new levels of madness into the mix. One minute it's a fast pace, it'll slow down a bit, and continue mixing things up until it suddenly goes right into a very short but very sweet bridge of just total insanity that acts more as the song's guitar solo. The only problem is that there are barely any other moments like that one throughout the album, which is rather disheartening, but there's still plenty of excellent fast tracks on here such as "Flayed Ecclessian Sophistry", "Priory Darkness of Choral Flesh" and "Sacreligious Desecration In Excelsis", the latter having a much slower section near the end that features the ringing of an old bell twice to add to the effect. While the bell isn't actually all that necessary, it just sounds good against the evil backdrop courtesy of the more slower, simpler, yet haunting guitar riffs that bring it to an end. While there's a total of thirteen tracks on this release, the album is actually rather short, having a total album length of twenty six minutes, which is a bit of a let down. Some songs seem to barely make it past the minute and a half mark, like "Lips of Plasma Vomiting Sanctimonious Pyx" which just clocks in seven seconds longer then that minute and a half, and the title track "Pontifical Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation" which is three seconds short. The closing track, "Echoes of Pestilential Synod" isn't even really a song, but more of an outro in two parts, the first being that of wind against a creepy ambience probably representing a graveyard, which fades out, then back in to a guitar solo that is very short, then fades out again. Aside the time issue, the vocals on this release are horrendously low in volume. Not only can you not make out a single work, but sometimes the music can practically drown them out. Sadly, this happens through the entire CD. So, from a musical stand point, while Pandemonic Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation is nothing all too new, it's definitely a release that you will find very interesting, as well as entertaining. With strong guitar riffs that compliment the a sometimes generic but many times hard hitting drums. Had the vocals been a little louder, and some of the fade outs either not used, as in letting the song end with chords and drums instead of fading quickly like the song didn't really have an ending planned, such as during the end of both "Depraved Mechinations" and "Echoes of Pestilential Synod" to name a few, then Pandemonic Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation would have been one hell of a release. With a little more fine tuning to the music to overcome some generic boundaries that some of the slower moments have, and a slightly better production quality that increases the vocals, Prosanctus Inferi could very well come up with a very brutal and blasphemous album that would wet the palettes of the Death and Black Metal worlds. |
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