Band: The Funeral Pyre

Title: Wounds

Label: Prosthetic Records

Distribution: Suburban - Bertus

Release date: 2008

Review: CD

One of the biggest surprises this year up till now is the newest album of The Funeral Pyre. Their former releases, Immersed By The Flames Of Mankind (self-produced, 2004) and The Nature Of Betrayal (originally released through Creator Destructor in 2006, a year afterwards re-released through Prosthetic Records), were more than acceptable creations, but this time, the band has exceed itself! Wounds, having a total running time of fifty minutes, was recorded at the Shiva Studio with ex-Phobia-member John Haddad (Intronaut, Eyes Of Fire, Abysmal Dawn etc), while the mix was done by nobody else but Eric Rutan at his Mana Studio, and the mastering was taken care of by Alan Douches at West West Side. The quintet’s music goes more or less on in the vein of the former recording, yet it goes further too, much further. The Death Metal elements from the early years may have been gone for the better part, and the underground-oriented Black Metal approach is now the core of Funeral Pyre’s music. And believe me: this material blackens the underground with sardonic pleasure! Fast and merciless yet melodic riffs, deep and sickening screams, an ultra-heavy rhythm section and an ice-cold atmosphere, that’s what Wounds stands for. And what’s more: the sound is just perfect: grim, un-polished, rough, oppressing and overwhelming. In a malicious way the whole does also exhale a certain funereal atmosphere and this with a chaotic (not noisy!) yet structured quality. Oh my Goddess, oh my beloved Horned One, I guess I have to weep by all this blackened beauty!

93/100

Ivan Tibos.