CoC : Nephasth - Unholy Immortal Triumph : Review

Nephasth - _Unholy Immortal Triumph_
(Mighty Music, 2001)
by: Matthias Noll (6.5 out of 10)

It's good to see so many Brazilian bands around these days. It's not good to see that the ones I'm aware of all sound so close to each other. While in my opinion Rebaelliun are currently the leader of the pack and have at least managed to release the album Krisiun should have done after _Conquerors of Armageddon_, Abhorrence sound like a total, slightly weaker Krisiun clone to me. Nephasth do also sound undeniably "Brazilian", but have worked a bit more to leave their own fingerprints than just offering ten unreleased Krisiun tracks with a different logo. Sure, Nephasth know how to blast like Krisiun, but they don't do that over the course of a full song or a whole record. They come up with far more breaks, do regularly slow down to what was called "fast" before blast beats became the norm, even reduce speed to mid-tempo sometimes and have learned a trick or two from Suffocation. The desire to keep things interesting is obvious throughout _UIT_ and Nephasth manage to keep all ten tracks nicely short and rather unforeseeable and diverse. Brazilian death metallers seem to spend quite some time practising and Nephasth's technical skills are indeed very good; in addition, _UIT_ has a dry, decent production. The vocals -- you guessed it -- sound like any other band I mentioned here and are probably the least remarkable part of _UIT_. Despite some quality that's certainly present on this record, it still falls into the overcrowded category of professional and aggressive releases which fail to be exciting and ultimately satisfying. Only die hard death metal enthusiasts or people with a neverending appetite for the Brazilian style should seek out this record. I have no doubt that Nephasth are still hungry and willing as well as able to improve. Maybe we're all in for a surprise next time around.

(article published 12/4/2002)