Full Length Review: Deus Sabaoth "Cycle Of Death" (Independent) by Dave Wolff

Band: Deus Sabaoth

Country: Ukraine

Genre: Melodic black metal

Full length: Cycle Of Death

Format: Digital, CD

Label: Independent

Release date: January 17, 2025

A sound of doom-laden black metal mixed with post-Renaissance baroque classical music is the soundtrack to an existential search of viewing religion in other, non-traditional ways while confronting one’s own mortality.

Digging deeper than themes of blind faith and skepticism, “Cycle Of Death” explores the relations between arbiters of truth and followers of any belief system which exploits and deceives them, turning religious belief into a means to keep people under control. The medium is not sacrilege as we’ve come to know it but takes form through speculation and questioning of the nature and motive of the sermonizer or institution.

Lyrical images of spiritual emptiness and martyrdom are accompanied by servitude and the drive to convert with the first track “The Priest” against a musical backdrop that’s’ mutually cheerless and magnificent. Classical and metal both adhere to coalescent arrangements, generally to humanize the elaborate private discord resulting from said disharmony between faith and dominance, and it does so in a clenching way that places you in the middle of the conflicts expressed through the verses.

Anton Vorozhtsov (Hell:On, Rame) mixed and mastered “Cycle Of Death” to orchestrate the classical and metal elements as equal parts to a greater whole, as opposed to one pushing to eclipse the other. The metal elements mirror those of baroque classical, sweeping from thunderous bass and hammering percussion to ascending guitars played to enhance the piano and strings. This execution is as profound in the slow parts of the songs as it's profound in the blast sections.

The more passionate and beautiful the musicianship, the more expressively desolate the lyrical content becomes until we get the minutest taste of what lies beyond the physical. The entire album seems made to narrate a steady descent into a spiritual universe of melancholic sorrow despite promises offered by religions. Its running motif of internal strife grows increasingly pronounced until its final crescendo of nothingness with “Beginning of New War”, ironically the most beautifully arranged song. –Dave Wolff

Lineup:

N-Exul: Vocals

Alyona Neith: All instruments

Ercld: Drums

Track list:

1. The Priest

2. Mercenary Seer

3. Cycle Of Death

4. Executioner

5. The Blind

6. Faceless Warrior

7. Beginning Of New War