Sould Sacrifice
Carpe Mortem

Carpe Diem means roughly seize the day, I suppose you can from that figure out what the title of the second album by Turkish band Soul Sacrifice means. Sounds evil, don’t you think? But Turkey as an origin for a metal band, that could mean exciting metal with oriental elements and a taste of the black sea along with some other exciting things, at least it can in my dreams. However, their album looks anything but exciting when looking at the cover, nothing oriental, nothing exotic just a boring logo and a boring looking cover art in general. I have no experience of this band from before but it was some time ago (2005) they released their debut album, I wonder if the time has been for creative reasons or anything else. No matter which, will Istanbul gain a place as a POI on the satellite navigator in my car?

Musically they sure seems to be taking inspiration from Swedish bands in the same genre, Gothenburg comes to mind fairly quickly when playing this album. There is not much in terms of orientalism to be found either, maybe thanks to it being a Swede mixing and mastering the album as well, very Swedish. Before I looked at the information I actually thought these guys were from the Swedish west coast somewhere, they sound very much like they could be. There are however one track that is a bit different in the title track also the track following it is somewhat atypical, the album is also decently varied within the theme and has eleven tracks with a playing time of slightly over 46 minutes.

So, am I impressed? not really, they sound just like anything else. Where is the oriental stuff, where are the different instrument, where is the sense of big markets and street commerce, where are the buildings that are so different from ours? It is just one more melodic death metal band, hasn’t the world seen enough of those already? I think so, but I guess there are some not sharing that opinion. The title track is however a bit different, simplistic and interesting, as is the following track Sarcastic Existence which sounds like a different death metal track but other than that it is the same melodic-, heavy-, growly with some clean vocals death metal, nothing exciting or fascinating at all. Two good tracks that is all, the rest is forgetful if I am being a bit kind in my opinion.

At times it sounds like they do try to make a bit of a differently styled music but it just does not shine through in the overall picture, maybe it is the production or the terrible growling they use for most of the time. I don’t know what it is but there is at least a seed of something hidden down there under a shroud of utter anonymity. Well, two tracks aren’t anonymous, they show something can even grow from that seed, maybe they should water that and place it in a bigger pot for the next album because if they do at least there is still hope for something interesting. If they don’t then you might as well forget about them altogether.

This album might appeal to those listening only to the melodic death metal genre and cannot get enough albums that sounds more or less the same, for anyone else there are better choices in the genre so you should really look elsewhere for you next album acquisition. May I suggest Love.Might.Kill that I reviewed earlier today as that next album? and the answer to that earlier question about Istanbul is no, carpe diem!