(On October 13th Necrogenesis Records released a new EP by the Japanese band Desolate Sphere, and it caught our writer DGR by surprise in more ways than one, as he explains in the following enthusiastic review.)

Who doesn’t love themselves a good ole’ fashioned Friday the 13th release date? Even across waters and international borders the idea is fun….or most likely lost, since Western world superstitions probably rest at the corner of fuck all and jack shit in terms of how much Desolate Sphere might be aware of it.

But needless to say, while we’ve often portrayed the date as being a harbinger of bad luck and decent slasher films in this corner of the world, last Friday gifted us a pleasant surprise in the form of Maledictus, a new EP from a newer death metal project hailing from Japan.

Lesser creatures out there might admit that they were drawn in almost by their album art alone but we…..oh, that’s what we did too? Oh, well in that case…with our attention initially grabbed entirely by the fiery and bright orange album art, Desolate Sphere‘s Maledictus proceeded to surprise on multiple fronts, though the tracklist being only five songs and the average tempo of every song hovering just shy of blisteringly fast was certainly a bonus. Continue reading »