Voice Of The Soul – “Catacombs” [Album Review]

Over the last couple of years the quality of metal bands coming out of the Middle East metal scene has been staggering so it is no surprise to see bands like Sven Gali and now progressive death metal crew Voice Of The Soul raising eyebrows outside their native country. Having been plying their trade since 2007, Voice Of The Soul are finally unleashing their epic death metal debut, Catacombs, globally having issued it late last year in their home country.

Intelligent, well-crafted and flawlessly executed, Catacombs is the perfect example of how stunning death metal can be. This isn’t some childish blast-beat gorefest, this is brutally heavy music with some real thought behind it. Whether it is the piano led intro of “Cold Rapture” or the raw, pummelling drive of “Defiled” there isn’t one single moment on this album that sounds like it has just been thrown in there for the sake of it. Every beat, every riff, every effect sounds like it has been planned out with painstaking attention to detail. Furthermore, recorded at Haven Studio is Dubai, Catacombs has an absolutely enormous production of a standard that a death metal album of this quality demands. Everything is crisp, the drums sound hard and the riffs shred while the mix of clean and guttural vocals are woven seamlessly into the music.

For just over forty minutes, the level of musicianship on this album demonstrated is absolutely faultless. Sticking out like a sore thumb in a genre of music that often gets a bad rap for childish lyrics, unintelligent music, and minimal musical talent, Catacombs is the kind of album that will quash those opinions in one fell swoop. So Middle East metal scene, what other gems are you hiding away from us?

Track Listing:

01. Desolation
02. Perpetual De…
03. Pendulum
04. Quarantine
05. Cold Rupture
06. The Mist
07. Perdition
08. Defiled
09. Images Subside

Run Time: 42:16
Release Date: March 27, 2015

Check out the album ‘Catacombs’ here