Full disclosure: I opened this promotional email, as I truly thought I was just sent a new reunion album from Swedish melodic black metal legends Sacramentum.
Turns out, after some research, it is a reunited band from the 90s, but it’s a progressive, atmospheric, almost Gothic death metal band from Poland that started in 1992, released 5 albums before splitting up in 2005. But being the consummate professional (other than misnaming bands), I powered on and listened anyway, and man was I glad I did.
So, I went back and listened to some of the band’s earlier stuff, and it’s a sort of melodic death metal thrash, then they went a bit more full Gothic metal, and that’s where I get an early Tiamat, Crematory vibe (Transmigration, ….Just Dreaming) due to the keyboards, mixed with some Atheist. It’s actually pretty good, ambitious stuff for its time, and I’m surprised they weren’t a bit bigger in the mid-90s.
So three of the OG band members reunited in 2022 (and added two fresh new faces on drums and guitar), and it’s their first album since 2004’s Sigma Draconis. And I’m really digging it, as it’s one of the most unique-sounding bands and albums I’ve heard in a minute.
What makes Sacriversum unique is the keyboards of Krzysztof Baranowicz (AKA Baran), who left the band after their debut, but returns here. His keyboards aren’t the usual orchestral/string/brass arrangements (though there are plenty here), but think of Thousand Lakes era Amorphis, in fact, Amorphis‘ “In the Beginning” or cover of The Doors’ “Light My Fire” and Gorefest’s “Electric Poet” from the divisive Soul Survivor album as a comparison. And more recently, Mausoleum Gate from last year. It’s that groovy 70s/Hammond/Vox Continental/ Gibson Kalamazoo-ish sound. And it rules.
It’s not used 100% of the time, but it’s on most of the songs, and it makes for some fun times amid the also very solid melodic death metal hues and gruff vocals of Remigiusz Mielczarek.
The album is bookended by two standouts that heavily feature the 70s-style keyboards. Opener “We’re Storming Through the Night” has a fucking killer keyboard-laden groove at about the 1:45 mark, as well as several other Hammond flurries that elevate the song into something really cool.
8-minute Closer “Chief of the Fearless” has everything: a chunky mid-paced riff, some cool vocal layering, yet another Killer Hammond breakdown/solo, a piano solo, and even a surprisingly fierce black metal blast beat to close the album out.
In between, there are still plenty of highlights: the groovy “Let Us Ride the World”, and the pure melodic death gallops of “March of the Giants”, and “The Golden Gates of Valhalla” (with its unhinged piano solo). The title track has an Unleashed vibe to the riff and gait (now, come to think of it, the vocals also remind me of Johnny Hedlund), while “We Die, We Fly” and “The Chaotic Realm of the Sea” bring those keyboards back to the front and center for trippy, psychedelic death metal romps.
Before the Birth of Light is one of the more unique and fun listens of 2026 so far, and a nice tangent from my usual deathcore/symphonic black metal. Far out, man!
