Masters of prog-death metal from Italy, Sadist released their new (ninth) album, called “Firescorched” on May 20 on the Agonia Records label. The band, which has a 30-year history and survived the breakup in the early 2000s, is now stronger than ever. Having completed its line-up with bass guitarist Jeroen Paul Thesseling (ex- Pestilence, Obscura) and drummer Romain Goulon (ex-Necrophagist) and thus received an international supergroup, the band issued one of its strongest albums ever.
Recording, mixing and mastering were handled by the main composer, guitarist, keyboardist and one of the founders of Sadist Tommy Talamanca at Nadir Music Studios in Genoa, Italy.
The record turned out to be small – 9 compositions for 38 minutes, but this is when they sacrifice quantity for the sake of quality. And there is a lot of this very quality here – the album flies by quickly and imperceptibly and I want to press repeat.
Tommy Talamanca described the album this way: “Fire scorched is perhaps the most extreme, high-speed and at the same time experimental album in the Sadist discography”.
The album opens with a very interesting composition Accabadora with a folk chant that tells the secrets of Sardinian stories about the “ladies of the good death” who relieve terminally ill Italians from their agony. In the XVIII century, the death of a man in Sardinia could become either a symbol of valor, when killed in battle, or a disgrace if he died for a long time and in agony. Therefore, in the latter case, the man was escorted to the next world by Accabadora — a woman who carried out euthanasia by folk Italian means, for example, by hitting the back of the head with a wooden hammer. A very powerful rhythm section, supported by a fretless bass, fills this song with a rocking groove with the inclusion of various keyboards and guitar chips. Immediately I would like to note the vocals of Trevor Nadir – very powerful, but at the same time perfectly readable, and the guitar and keyboard master Tommy Talamanka is as always on top.
The next composition of Fleshpound is classic prog-death metal with the addition of fresh elements: a short acoustic interlude and a gothic synthesizer section.
Finger Food demonstrates a wide variety of musical styles used by the band, which is preserved throughout the recording. The band harmoniously combines sometimes simply incongruous elements of jazz, Middle Eastern music and mixing all this with hard death metal into a single whole. Listening to it is at least interesting, because you are in constant tension and do not know what will happen next.
Special mention is worthy of the excellent instrumental track Loa, which reveals an amazing, melodic aspect of the Sadist repertoire.
Aggression/Regression is one of the most powerful and heavy compositions on the album. In general, in the second half of the record, the music becomes more technical, the band really demonstrates their instrumental skills.
Three Mothers And The Old Devil Father is the most diverse composition in terms of tempo and mood changes.
The album ends with the track of the same name Firescorched – another excellent composition combining groove with techno-death metal, gloomy choruses and excellent instrumental playing.
In general, Fire scorched is an interesting album, whose experiments demonstrate the evolution of what is called prog-death metal. Sadist have created another diverse, musically impressive record in their extensive discography. The musicians have shown that they still have many different ideas, which leads to an exciting listening experience for any fan of extreme progressive music.
