Band:	Sarpanitum
Album:	Despoilment Of Origin
Style:	Brutal death metal
Release date:	February 26, 2007
A review by:	Baz Anderson

01. Seducing The Phallus Throne
02. Halls Of Decadence
03. Ascending The Divine
04. Provocation Of An Eternal Odium
05. Dusk Over Assyria
06. Cur Defilement
07. Dawn Of Enthrallment
08. Despoilment Of Origin

The world of metal and more specifically death metal these days is a lions den of hopeful bands just waiting to be recognised and get their break in the world and more then ever now, these band need to undoubtedly be impressive and of course smash your face off in the process - and that is exactly what Sarpanitum do. The year 2003 brought the birth of the band in Birmingham, England and since then all the band has done is grow - performing on the same stage as a lengthy list of respectable names of the genre and now having been signed, their album is one of the two albums from the fledgling Galactic Records started by Leon Macey of Mithras.

Sarpanitum present here and album of crushing metal, from beginning to end the band are unrelenting with their death metal assault, the first song just as extreme as the last. Every part of the band is impressively fast, the guitars technical as well as melodic at times for example during "Provocation Of An Eternal Odium" combined with a constant murderous barrage of drumming from Sean Broster and almost guttural sounding vocals that aren't too far away from the sound Karl Sanders of Nile - these all make for one highly intense death metal album.

The opening song "Seducing The Phallus Throne" although having a title like something you would expect from the next Nile album actually sounds more similar to the material Behemoth has been putting out since 2004 with its epic, grandiose blastbeating opening things up. As well as this, I hear a strong Nile influence as well; not just with the lyrics and song titles but especially the little acoustic interlude "Dusk Over Assyria" which is followed by "Cur Defilement" that perfectly demonstrates the influences from both these bands in one song.

Originality will probably always be questioned with this band, in places this does sound a lot like the more recent Behemoth and Nile but it is unquestionable that Andy Techakosit is fascinated with ancient civilisation and mythology and his band are just playing the sort of music they love with amazing skill and talent, so I can tell you it really doesn't matter that much.

It is quite astonishing really, the band haven't been together five years yet and can produce something as professional and astounding as this, where it would have taken the majority of bands double that amount of time to become so tight and polished. The album is produced great, there are no issues with this at all so you get to focus entirely on the face melting metal just the way it was meant to be heard.

Sarpanitum are definitely worth looking into for all fans of fast and crushing death metal, when you sit yourself down in front of an album like this, you have no other choice then to just marvel. For sure this is a band that will make people sit up and take notice when they hear about English death metal in the future.