Sxuperion - Endless Spiritual Embodiment

Sxtiousie and the Blandcheese

Sxuperion apparently has a pretty solid body of work behind him already, but this fourth full length, Endless Spiritual Embodiment is my first brush with the sort-of-eponymously-named project.  I actually know a tiny bit of the guy's work, as I've heard him create some damn solid stuff drumming for Valdur a year or two ago, but Sxuperion here is his baby, where he handles every instrument, every lyric, every note, even the label it's released on.  So yeah there's no doubt that Sxuperion is a vanity project, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a very good one.

One of my low-key favorite bands that I rarely ever talk about is Blasphemy, and I hear a lot of those guys here.  So it goes without saying that this is some form of black/death metal, though it doesn't quite tap the same war metal vein of the aforementioned influence.  Instead, this leans heavily on a form of meaningless chaos, and I mean "meaningless" in the sense of a nihilist philosophy where the world is an uncaring cosmic void of pointless misery.  Endless Spiritual Embodiment is therefore dripping with malice and misanthropy, tumbling wildly through malevolent corridors bleeding black blood.  It's hard to tell exactly which side of the black/death dichotomy Sxuperion favors, because a good case could be made for both.  "Endless Embodiment" is based on a very spacey black metal feel with furious death metal riffage, while "Sacred Chamber of the Enlightenment" strikes with destructive European death metal morbidity atop a bleak black metal atmosphere.  Think of something like a deeper and meatier Archgoat or a colder and faster Blood Incantation.  Sxuperion expertly straddles the line and in turn opens a portal to a realm that, while well tread, is endless in its capacity for extremity.

The vocals are deep and bestial, the riffs are menacing and snarling, the atmosphere is cold and unfeeling, and what ties it all together is ironically a sense that nothing works.  Nearly every song includes a quiet interlude where almost nothing exists but dead air, allowing you to contemplate the absurdity of existence on your own before the tumbling cacophony returns to give you the answer.  The album smoothly swells between these cold voids of contemplative nonexistence and explosions of violent unmusical racket, and I think the album's true strength is that it's never really disorienting despite the chaotic din of cosmic torment.  Life is a hellish kaleidoscope of meaningless absurdity that takes place in a world that doesn't care about you and Sxuperion delivers the soundtrack for this bitter nonexistence.


RATING: 88%