Hailing from Padova, Italy, SoulDÆmon is a unique and bass-heavy death metal outfit. After some lineup changes, the band currently consists of founding member Mark, guitarist Andy Cage, and drummer Oph Serpent. Their latest single is entitled The Warm Embrace of Black and is a beautiful mix of experimental modern-ish Death Metal, TechDeath, and some old-school face-melting blast beats merged with a chainsaw guitar.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room, the bass guitar. The low frequencies of the entire composition are second to none in their greatness actually. I don’t think there’s any death metal band active in the world nowadays, other than Beyond Creation probably, that uses a fretless (or fretless-sounding) technical bass guitar like the one used by Mark here. The atmosphere created by this playing method is a pretty technical one, but then again, when the fast guitar riffs arrive, he can play some fast bass lines to return the sound to a more 90s classical OSDM. It’s deceptively simple if you ask me.
The guitar work on the track is crunchy, groovy, and straight-to-point. There are no needless breakdowns or extravagant melodic passages where the lead guitar overtakes the song, and that’s what I’m totally here for…that primal and carnal Death Metal atmosphere. The fast thrashy way they end every guitar phrase and decorate it with blast beats paves the way for the big headbang-inducing and mosh-inducing wall of sound that this song is.
Last but not least, I’ll address how demonic the vocals are. The guttural and deep growls live up to the band’s name, as they sound very raw in their nature and in their sound design. The song as a whole is not over-produced or over-polished and this will appeal to all classic death metal fans, in my opinion. To sum it all up, this is the band that will bridge the gaps between modern and old-school death metal for you, and The Warm Embrace of Black is a great place to start experiencing what they provide, so go check these guys out on all platforms.
