Empty Chalice "Spiritual Abuse"

    Imagine a room full of hooded occult followers holding candles, a massive satanic sacrificial altar and an innocent screaming sacrifice who more than liking listens to mainstream pop/rap music. Now, I would not be surprised if Empty Chalice’s debut album, “Spiritual Abuse,” is being played in the background as they perform some occult like ritual, because this debut album is one sinister offering of fiendish sounding blackened death metal. 

    Empty Chalice definitely pays homage to bands like Bathory, Sarcofago, Bestial Warlust and Blasphemy, while also incorporating some gruesome sounding old school death metal elements. I mean the band takes their name from a Blasphemy song and both bands are from Canada, so that connection stood out right away. I think the overall production and presentation of the album is fairly solid. There are some areas where the drums and guitars are recorded a bit low, however, I think that the overall recording quality amplifies the raw and savage nature of the band’s haunting blackened death vision. 

    Out of the eight songs on this album I think listeners are going to be treated to one wicked sounding release that flows with malevolent force from beginning to end. The album opens with sounds of torture and despair, which is appropriate for the vicious musical onslaught that follows. “Spiritual Abuse,” is a strong opening piece of music containing some diabolical sounding riffs along with some utterly horrifying death growls. Everything seems to come crashing through the speakers with a seismic shock of unfathomable terror and pulls you down into this profane realm of bestial sounding aggression. 

    I think my favorite song off of the album though has to be, “13 Bells.” The band begins the song by constructing this bone chilling atmosphere that grips you with unspeakable fear. As the bells rig leaving you almost speechless, the band hammers out an unholy offering of sacrilegious sounding chaos. 

     Another important point to bring up is that the songs on this album do not run too long in length. Some bands that write blackened death metal can get carried away and lose listeners with countless and repetitive compositions. Empathy Chalice throughout the album is able to write effective cuts of extreme sounding brutality that waste little time getting straight to the point.

    If you enjoy those acoustic sounding medieval pieces of music very similar to what you might hear on certain Bathory albums, then you will really enjoy the song, “Coup De Grace.” The music is very pleasant sounding at first and the acoustic riff lulls you into a sense of tranquility. Eventually you start to hear the sounds of people in the background being vanquished in battle and as the acoustic riff ends the band launched into a blizzard of gruesome sounding destruction. Also, the band does a killer cover of Necrovore’s “Divus De Mortuus,” which compliments the other tracks extremely well, especially since I would even compare Empty Chalice’s sound to that of Necrovore. 

    Empty Chalice is yet another solid extreme metal act to put out an album this year that delivers a fearsome underground metal attack. “Spiritual Abuse,” is an album that taps into the classic world of raw sounding blackened death metal, but also does not come across as painfully unoriginal. If you enjoy that tormenting style of early black metal with a bloody splash of old school grave defiling death metal, then I highly recommend checking this album out. Every time someone listens to this album and a demon is summoned forth to torment a modern mainstream pop artist...come on people we need to start listening! 

Check out the full album below :

Empty Chalice Bandcamp:

https://emptychalicebm.bandcamp.com/releases