Wine, Song and Sacrifice

This is another case of those independent bands that without any help and with very little budget, they try to leave a mark. Some of them do not worth any mention, but a few others consist of very talented and promising artists. The case of Sanguinary Trance is the second one. Sanguinary Trance is a new one-man band coming from Austria and they released their first EP, “Wine, Song and Sacrifice”, in June of 2018. It contains three tracks of overall duration of about twenty-three minutes in which the band shows its melodic, medieval, some epic and surely their Scandinavian Black Metal influences.

Firstly, the Summoning references are obvious both into the very nice keyboards, the melodic guitar lines and into the impressive atmosphere which adds an epic – dark essence to the music. The music both into the fast paced and the slower parts is dark and melodic, while the riffing adds a touch of chaos and insanity to the final result. The first track has a more complex structure and although it is a twelve – minutes long track, it is very interesting as it combines all the elements mentioned above in a way that the listener does not get bored. The other two tracks are shorter but also quite complex regarding the composition. The fast paced, chaotic parts are the ones that the listener will come across more frequently, but the mid-tempo, full of energy and passion passages are also here. Finally, the slow parts give a very dark and misty feeling.

Concerning the instruments’ performance, the artist responsible for the instruments has done a very nice job, delivering a very professional but also passionate performance. The guitars are flawless, with complex and technical lines, they deliver a very nice result. The bass isn’t always audible and its lines are interesting, at least in the audible parts. The guest drummer has done a nice job as he delivers his lines with accuracy and stability. The vocals are harsh and raw, old school Black Metal vocals, very expressive and intense. The production, on the other hand, is quite weak and the result is raw but loses in power, something that makes the music flat and the atmosphere not as impressive as the band would like it to be. The mixture is mediocre as the bass is almost inaudible almost throughout the entire album. The lyrics are written in English but not available.

Despite the problems with the sound, the first release of Sanguinary Trance is a very interesting effort. “Wine, Song and Sacrifice” is a small token of the band’s talent. I believe that if they work for their next release as they have worked for this EP, they will offer a very good release to Black Metal. If you are a fan of Scandinavian, melodic, dark, epic Black Metal you will appreciate this release. Listen to it.