UMUR
"Relics of Sulphur Salvation" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Vanhelgd (the Swedish word for "desecrated"). The album was released through Pulverised Records/20 Buck Spin in May 2014. Vanhelgd was formed in 2007 with the intent to play no frills old school Swedish death metal...
...and that´s exactly what they do on "Relics of Sulphur Salvation". This is through and through old school Swedish death metal. It´s brutal, relatively catchy, and features the signature buzzing guitar tone, that defines the "Swedish" sound. The production values are a bit more up to date, than most other contemporary artists playing this style, but it´s not a clean sound production by any means. In fact it´s a very harsh attack on the ears, which suits the equally raw music well.
Most lyrics are in English, but the band include a couple of Swedish language tracks too, and to my ears that´s greatly charming. The material are generally well written and quite catchy while it plays, but it´s not particularly memorable after the album is over, which ends up being a slight issue. The passionate and skilled performance of the material pulls my impression in a positive direction though and a 3.5 star (70%) rating isn´t all wrong.