Sovereign — Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice

Whenever I receive a new title to review, I always like to play the game “Guess where this band is from” during my first listen. Sometimes I’m totally off the mark, but with others I’m dead on the mark as regional trends shape the music. In the case of Sovereign’s Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice, the predominant Swedish riffs are laced with a sort of intimate, worldly American atmosphere that was impossible to miss. Blending two different styles Feels a little more real, more personal, and perhaps a little more evil for it.

Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice is not only an interesting album for the fusion of American and Swedish black metal, but also how they incorporate disparate elements into one unified statement of satanic intent. The opening track “Gnosis” and “Profane Glow” bring to mind cosmological horror and infinite madness, as echoing notes ring out into nothingness before being swallowed up by the void. There’s an almost psychedelic element to these pieces as the guitar floats out into the unimaginable vastness of space.

But Sovereign don’t dwell entirely in the realm of the cosmos. These sections are soon interrupted and the grounded black metal grabs you by the throat and drags you screaming back to earth. A lot of the music on Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice is built around reoccurring Dissection styled tremolo melodies. These riffs appear out of the wretched, omnipresent gloom, flickering like brave, perhaps foolish, candles in an otherwise suffocating darkness. These fragments are broken up by mid-paced sections of skull-crushing atmospherics, as these Americans weave ever more morbidity into an already stygian experience with tracks like “Sulfur’s Cross”, which marches dolefully and indomitably like a funeral procession for all of mankind.

Comparisons to Dissection and Watain would be easy to make, but would also be missing the point. The influence of these bands is clear, but the Sovereign is more than just recycled ideas. These Americans manage to craft something unique with Nailing Shut the Sacrosanct Orifice, which is quite a feat in the ever cloying black metal scene. Sovereign is a worthy addition to the newer cohorts of devil worshippers such as Chalice of Blood, The Ascendant, and Orcivus; A dark future awaits them.