Flagellated Seraph – Beyond Salvation (2012)

Mysterious Swedish outfit Flagellated Seraph delivers us their debut full-length release titled “Beyond Salvation”. With six tracks of fast-paced Melodic Black Metal, this band will surely surprise you with the quality of their music. Coming from Hellthrashers Productions, we expected something totally different from this release, and we are very glad it turned out this ways since some of the songs in this album are just killer.

Opening with a warm-up track “Reminiscence of The Serpent”, the band fully unleashes its riffing power as “He Who Bears the Mark”. While at first this might seem like your average run of the mill BM band, the song suddenly shifts into excellent melodic territories. Reminding us of older Dark Funeral, Marduk, and the likes, Flagellated Seraph has the skills to deliver extreme intensity tracks that are very well crafted. The massive drumming is one example of the band’s mystery musician’s abilities.

The hyper-intense “Beyond Salvation” is our favorite track in this release thanks to the furious guitar work and the excellent drum track. The band does an excellent job in crafting a wall of sound with their bestial guitar work and delivers one of the best BM tracks we have heard in quite a while. The harsh raspy vocals greatly enhance the destructive mood of such a monumental song.

With determination, the band pummels through the longer songs “I Am The Flame” and “Redeemer of Nothingness”. Both tracks keep the intensity level quite high and change tempos just in the right moments avoiding any dullness to sink in. Before you know it, this release is over with the experimental atmospheric piece “Casus Belli”, not the band’s best track, but good enough to provide closure in such an intense and epic release.

If you are a fan of Black Metal and are looking for a killer melodic band, this is the release you have been waiting for. Our only complaint is that is a bit short, around 30 minutes, but other than this, “Beyond Salvation” is a quite amazing debut release.

Release: July 23rd, 2012

Genre: Melodic Black Metal

Country: Sweden