Sepulcros are a five piece death doom group from Portugal that have quite an impressive debut with their album “Vazio.” With initials shrouded in as much mystery as their music, listeners will find six tracks of solid epic doom (aside from the opening and closing atmospheric pieces) that will grip them by the throat and drag them down under into a world of nightmare and despair (as all good death doom usually should). Fans will certainly hear traces of Disembowelment, much older Shape of Despair, and even a little Blut Aus Nord with the echoing dissonance and some of the industrial elements that are lumped into the opening ‘Involucro Oco.’ Once the doom elements hit with ‘Vazio’ one is treated to the standard slow, whiny guitar with echoing atmosphere and echoing, growled vocals, However, Sepulcros have a tendency to speed things up quite a bit as the song progresses to almost black metal territory, which is a different from a lot of the average atmospheric doom metal bands that tend to keep the same pace all the way through, which can end up boring a lot of listeners if they are not a die hard fan of the genre. The music is still overall rooted in doom death territory, but the touching on other territories is a nice gesture to make themselves unique.

The atmosphere never changes for Sepulcros as they maintain that echoing, haunting tone track after track. On the slower ones like ‘Magno Caos’ the distortion is more effective especially when it comes to the vocals as the reverb just echoes all the way across like a gun shot. It is grim, evil, and perfect, much in the way Deathspell Omega vocalist Mikko Aspa can get that frightening effect for black metal. While Sepulcros are far from black metal, on a track like ‘Hecatombe’ which features some of the faster moments, it can seem like the delve into black metal territories with the faster, rawer parts and the higher pitched screams that would make Funeral Mist proud. The blending of the genres is a delicate balance and Sepulcros do it well.

The only rough part about this album is it seems like it is meant to be played as one whole track. Lots of the songs blend into each other well but at the same time cut off in between, so that might throw listeners off a little. However, aside from that the music here is spot on for anyone who like doom metal with tons of atmosphere and a very raw, atmospheric presence. While there are no keyboards, violins, or anything really classical to give some gothic overtones, “Vazio” uses its ‘bowels of hell’ atmosphere to laden on the depression especially with the vocals and the fuzziness of the guitars to bury both the bass and drums for a simple, yet torturous effect. Crushing and despairing is what listeners will get with Sepulcros, and hopefully they couldn’t be happier with the result.

4 / 5 STARS