Review of Sophicide - Perdition of the Sublime

It’s another word for anti-intellectualism. People are stupid, ignorant and seem to be proud of it. This is a disturbing trend.”  So says Adam Laszlo about the meaning behind the name of the project he helms all by himself – Sophicide.  Perdition of the Sublime is an absolute scorcher, made even more impressive by the fact that no one but Laszlo handled the duties that birthed this monster.

Smashing the walls down from the opening seconds of the album, Perdition goes for broke right from the beginning.  Laszlo hails from Germany, which has produced such phenomenal death metal as Centaurus-A, Defeated Sanity and Grind Inc. (one of my personal favorite bands).  So you know the 22 year old has had some good material to study.  But where Sophicide sets itself apart is the eye-opening technicality on display, coupled with solid song-writing and enough tempo changes to keep the listener intrigued.

Oh did I mention that a certain legendary tech death band (that-will-never-come-out-with-a-new-album-though-we’ve-been-saying-we-will-for-like-six-years) also calls Germany home?  Yes I’m referring to Necrophagist, and the comparison is not a stretch by any means.  The sweeps, staccato riffing and hand-cramping guitar work is simply stunning, and might remind you of a certain debut that set the metal world on its ear.  You get your first taste two minutes into the first track, and another towards the end that brings the opening salvo to a close.  It continues from there throughout the entire album, and picking out each shredder would stretch this review to encyclopedia length.  Fans of Obscura and Spawn of Possession will have a lot to chew on with this album.  While having no shortage of brutality, this is not as relentlessly pummeling as the new Hour of Penance, nor as overly-technical-as-to-be-unmemorable like the new Beneath the Massacre.  Laszlo has really managed to strike a fine balance that few can match on their debut LP.

As mentioned before, Laszlo did it all on this album, right down to the beefy production.  His vocals keep a solid death roar throughout, with just enough variance to keep things interesting.  I wish I could say the drummer absolutely killed it, but as you can probably guess the drums are programmed (which I can’t stand for reasons I won’t get into here).  But my personal biases aside, they are done very well, dancing in between the lightning riffs and providing a solid background to the guitar wizardry on display.  Another gem of a find for Willowtip.