Kev Rowland Finnish Black Metal act S.I. have been around since 2005, and released their debut album ‘Cultus Nex’ in 2009. It was that album that started to gain interest in the band and they followed it up with ‘II - Exalted Spectres’ in 2010. Now here we are there years later and they are back with the next instalment, which can be translated “The Light of Those Down Below, the Dead” (apparently). The band has been through quite a few line-up changes over the years, which has seen members of bands such as Evil Angel, Exordium, Neutron Hammer, The Crescent, Urn, Vitsaus and others pass through the ranks, and the current line-up is Von Bastard (guitars, main songwriting), Tooloud (bass), Revenant (drums) with new vocalist/lyricist Wrathprayer. They have been building a reputation on the live circuit for their uncompromising shows and thay have gone some way in capturing that on the album.

There is nothing incredibly fancy here, what you see is what you get, so if you enjoy corpse paint and everything that goes with it then this is probably an album for you. In many ways it hearkens back to the classic old school days of BM, and the production here is spot on for the music. They haven’t gone with the “you can barely hear it so it must be great wall of noise” that some bands try, and also have been too clinical so the power really comes through. To be honest I hadn’t come across SI before hearing this, but it has made me think that it is probably worth searching out their earlier material as well. A very solid offering indeed. www.sacrilegiousimpalement.com