Reviews list for Sermon of Flames - I Have Seen the Light, and It Was Repulsive (2021)

On a list of things I simply don't need to hear in 2021 (or any other year for that matter), Sermon of Flames are in my top three at least.  Labelled as black, death, sludge, noise on Encyclopaedia Metallum usually means 'confused' in my experience, I held little hope of uncovering a gem when going into this record. Whilst this release does actually hold more form than I expected it is an ugly and chaotic one.  Ugly is not usually a problem for me but when you have more than one Portal or Ævangelist record in your life then you have heard the squally style of death metal that Sermon of Flames play many times already.

In defence of SoF, they do offer a more grind mentality to their song structures in the main, keeping them short and not so sweet at under one minute thirty in a few instances with only a couple of tracks exceeding the five minute mark.  These shorter eruptions of violence work best out of the track lengths on offer, yet again though I must remind myself that although this is not supposed to be a particularly inventive sub-genre it has been done before on many occasions.  Even when the band go for a longer track it does not reveal anything new or all that interesting.  They pace tracks the longer tracks well enough and do avoid the jolting and grating lack of synchronicity that the likes of Portal do like to cripple the listener with, yet there is no real sense of threat behind most of the record and do not get any sense of morbid curiosity for returning to the record for repeated listens to try and peel back layers of the sound as I already know what I will find.

In so many ways, IHStL,aIWR should be right up my street but it feels like it is about ten years too late for me.  Competent though it is, I have heard it all before, and nothing about this release really stands out from the crowd.  The noise elements are sparse in all honesty and so when they do make an appearance they just irritate, causing more of a distraction and disruption with their amateurish attempts to sound menacing and horrific.  I know this is not supposed to be the most organised of music but some thought to the track listing would not have gone amiss here.  Disappointing.