UMUR "Dark Memorials" is the 12th full-length studio album by Dutch, Rotterdam based death metal act Sinister. The album was released through Massacre Records in June 2015. Sinister is one of the first death metal acts from The Netherlands, forming in 1988, and other than a short break from 2004 to 2005, the band has been active throughout their career, recording and touring in a steady cycle.

"Dark Memorials" is a bit different than their usual studio output though, as it´s a covers album, featuring covers of various death- and thrash metal artists. There aren´t many surprises on the tracklist, which features covers of artists like Sepultura, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Death, and Autopsy, so the cover of "Master Killer" by Merauder is as close as it comes to a surprise. All tracks are pretty faithful to the original material, although Sinister of course delivers the music in their own relatively standard sounding death metal style.

The album features a well sounding production, and the musicianship is generally on a high level too, so the basics are in place. The choice to only cover death- and thrash metal tracks is not that interesting though, and as Sinister has always been a pretty standard death metal act without a unique sound, the covers come off as solid, but not much more than that. They haven´t done anything extraordinary with the material, and you wouldn´t be able to tell that it was Sinister playing a cover of an Autopsy track if you didn´t know. That probably came out a bit more harsh than I hoped it would, but that shouldn´t take away from "Dark Memorials" that it´s still a solid death metal covers album. A 3 star (60%) rating is fair.