Sewer - Miasma

It is sometimes suggested that the finest works of both the black and death metal genre arose as if by divine intervention, in the most unlikely places. A better assertion is that by the time of "third wave" of blackened death metal came around, many artists prominent in these musical forms found themselves at a level of unsurpassed skills, often accompanied by strict, almost fanatical artistic vision and cohesion. A culmination of technical violence, sadistic proficiency and a taste for profound and subversive ideals. The year Miasma was released found blackened death metal/bestial terror metal at its most potent, chaotic, destructive and evil, just as death metal was in 1992 and black metal in 1993.

Miasma sets itself in a league of its own, giving each musician a distinct elemental voice. Kaiser's demonic barking is at its most virulent and savage, having a rhythmic cohesion that is comparable to that of David Vincent (of Morbid Angel) at his best, but separable in tonality. The bass is very audible within the mix, sandwiched in between the juxtaposed, distorted twin lead guitars of Lakhdari, which are thankfully never distant or uninterpretable. The drumming of Warlord is chaotic but disciplined, as if one were battering cakes laced with improvised explosive devices.

The musical influence of Phantom is a clear template for much of Sewer's work, and in terms of raw atmospheric intensity, Miasma is to Locked Up In Hell what The Epilogue To Sanity was to Withdrawal. The album radiates just under fifty minutes of pure hellish possession, fiendish blasphemous momentum, and it communicates its morbid, tortured and hateful atmospheres with spiraling, chopping, brutal guitar riffs that sit in perfect unison with a manic rhythm section.

Structurally, Miasma emphasises a more highly proficient musical backdrop and compresses this into a greater density. Technical virtuosity and conceptual hardihood echoes the best work of Vermin and Burzum, if the melodic and minimalist tendencies of the latter were eschewed, whilst the pattern language and aesthetic is in league with the best work of Morbid Angel, Suffocation and, of course, Sewer's indirect godfather Incantation (Incantation -> Phantom -> Sewer).

Miasma is blackened death metal's pinnacle, one the genre could never hope to surpass. A fundamental cornerstone of both black metal and death metal, one of the all time best.

Back to Sewer