It may have been the English writer Jonathan Swift (he of Gulliver’s Travels) who was the earliest source of the proverb that, as time passes, everything old is new again. Or it might have been Ovid. But whoever first coined the phrase was surely right.
The members of the Greek metal band Sarcastic Obedience aren’t that old, but they are new again. They look very young indeed in photos of them taken when they released their debut EP Internal Disturbance in 2013.
But now they’re more than a decade older, and they have their first record since that EP now on the horizon, a self-titled album that will be released on February 14th by Chaos and Hell Productions. New again, but man, for them that horizon must have seemed like it was receding farther away with every step they took toward it.
2013
What we mean by that is this: The debut album of Sarcastic Obedience was recorded and mixed between 2015 and 2018. The mastering was complete in 2019. And then years passed, years plagued by the mishaps of a record label that had agreed to release the album, and by an actual plague that we all remember.
But at last the waiting has ended, with the album rescued by a deal with Chaos & Hell, and maybe Sarcastic Obedience can now breathe a deep sigh of relief. Or maybe they feel like running into the streets and howling like furious madmen.
You might feel like doing the same when you hear the album. You might feel like doing the same when you hear just the first single from it that we’re presenting today — “Fading Faith“.
This song is a vicious death/thrash race, but a race through a twisting and turning labyrinth, with abundant starts and stops, rapidly changing tempos, and more changes in fretwork and rhythms than any sane person would try to map out. It will kick your pulse rate into high gear and spin your head like a top.
There’s plenty of raw and rabid snarling, gagging, and howling in the song too, and all the hairpin-curve instrumental maneuvers are riotous, but the mind-boggling maneuvers, though seemingly crazed, are executed with truly impressive skill as well as savage spirit.
Chaos & Hell recommends this new album for fans of Death, Pestilence, Atheist, and Sadus, and when you hear this song you’ll understand why.
The band’s own faith may have faded at times, but hopefully now it will be rewarded. And hopefully now they’ll bring us more that’s new before too much more time passes. For now, we’ve got an exciting album that fans of technically adventurous (but still mean as hell) death metal will relish.
The new album was recorded, assisted, produced, and mixed mixed at Bombtrack Studio by Michalis Meleteas. It was mastered by Andreas Karayiannis at Dismorphia Studio.
Chaos & Hell will release Sarcastic Obedience on CD. It’s adorned by striking cover art created by Maxwell Aston. For more info, check the links below.
https://www.instagram.com/chaos.and.hell.productions/
https://www.facebook.com/chaosandhellproductions
https://chaosandhellproductions.bandcamp.com