Band:	Last Sacrament
Album:	Maniacal Meditations
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	August 30, 2013
Guest review by:	Alex F

01. Emergence Of Opposites
02. Tyrants Of Pain
03. Self Deceit
04. Post-Human

Death metal of the modern age comes in all different shapes and sizes, and it has become increasingly difficult for bands to distinguish themselves from one another. This seems to be a problem with which Last Sacrament is ignorant of. Their specific blend of misanthropic torture can be most related to being Demilich-inspired, but similarities or parallels are few and far between aside from that. The utilization of custom microtonal guitars by lead guitarist Ron Sword allows for customized chord progressions, scales, and a variety of other techniques previously unheard by the vast majority of the human population.

Last Sacrament shines most in the riffing and general guitar-work, immediately apparent as this monumental EP opens with a short burst of curious sounding, yet not out of place arpeggiated chords. Microtonal scale lengths essentially allow for the instrumentation to deviate from the standard ABCDEFG note limitations within nearly all music of modern times. This is a power which, if executed poorly, could very likely have come across as a gimmick of sorts. Needless to say, Last Sacrament present themselves as masters of songwriting, and ease the listener into these foreign tonal-shifts, accenting more conventional rhythm riffing with the often dissonant lead guitars.

Proving that they are not leaning on the rarity of microtonal scales to attract an audience, Last Sacrament excel in nearly every other department on Maniacal Meditations. The production allows for the low end to be thrown across the room in a sense, creating a monumental sound indicative of early Suffocation. However, this wall-of-sound approach still leaves room for the band to add enough clarity for the listener to fully absorb the melodies and many intricacies of the varied songwriting.

On this particular EP, I view the vocals as a bridge between outstanding riffs. They are not bad by any means, however they do not impress to the point of addiction. Tending heavily towards an incomprehensible and extremely low guttural, the vocalist fails to separate himself from the hordes of others with the same lack of range yet powerful low end. The positive effect from the restrictions on the vocalist's growls is a further accentuation of the deep cavernous sound of the music, however I would have preferred something more unique.

Maniacal Meditations was my first experience with Last Sacrament, however the debut full length is just as good. Innovation like this simply has to occur in order to prevent death metal from becoming a stale genre of copy-cats.