Spectral Lore – Sentinel (2012)

All the way from Greece, today we have the one-man beast Spectral Lore unleashing a relentless Black Metal release titled “Sentinel”. In this album, Ayloss, the man behind the band, delivers six crushing tracks with brutal Black Metal escapades filled with eerie ambient elements that create a very dense and cavernous feeling around the excellent music. Clocking in around 75 minutes of music, this album is a true gem since every second is perfectly used towards the band’s creative vision instead of wasted in mind-numbing repetition like most Ambient/Atmospheric Black Metals bands.

Blasting things wide open with the brutal “All Devouring Earth”, the ‘band’ delivers pummeling riffs and intense drumming that will blow you away. As time progresses, the ambient/atmospheric side of things kicks in and allows the song to fully sink it while the inhuman vocals work their magic. Just around the corner “The Dejection of Arjuna” is waiting to slowly creep under your skin will more brutality and perfectly paced tremolo-picking magic.

The most ‘traditional’ track on this release is the ‘short’ “The Coming of Age”, a piece that serves a as a good transition track before the creepy atmospheric onslaught of “Quest for the Supramental”. One of our favorite tracks in this release is “My Ascencion into the Celestial Spheres” and it’s dirty and crushing feeling, it reminds us a bit of Inquisition but with a more atmospheric edge to it, brilliant indeed.

Closing the album we have a 30 minute behemoth of a song called “Atlus (A World within a world)”. In this creepy ambient/atmospheric track, the listener is kept at the edge of his seat for quite an extensive duration of time, truly a feat thanks to very well paced sections. We won’t ruin the track for you by going into any more details, but it is truly chilling.

If you are looking for a good dosage of hateful Black Metal with ambient/atmospheric elements, look no further and get “Sentinel”. We can’t say enough praises of Ayloss and his excellent levels of craftsmanship and creativity behind this creepy and intense release.

Release: June 2012

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Greece