SHRINE OF THE SERPENT/ BLACK URN - split LP
NO CLEAN SINGING wrote about this masterpiece of DEATH/DOOM METAL:
"On the other side of the country in Portland, Oregon, you’ll find Shrine of the Serpent, whose line-up consists of current or former members of such bands as Aldebaran, Graves At Sea, Uzala, Lung Molde, and Triumvir Foul. Their previous release was a self-titled EP in 2015. As mentioned, their two songs are in the middle of this four-track split, and those songs finish the deliberate job of suffocating and crushing that Black Urn begin.
“Desicrated Tomb Master” wastes no time slowly stretching the listener’s body on the rack, both pulling sinews apart and smashing bones to dust with a massive, trudging assault built from a titanic, vibrating riff and gut-slugging bass and drum punishment. The song’s melodic blood-flow is black and blasted, a congealing ooze of bitterness and abandonment. Stunningly heavy and hopeless for most of its length, the song ends in an effusion of frightening sounds that conjure the arrival of the horror that has been approaching since the outset.
The bleak, heaving melody of “Catacombs of Flesh Master” groans under the weight of cold stone and eons of death, with the lyrics exclaimed in raw, flesh-rending howls and heart-splitting cries. The glacial approach of catastrophe spills over into more frenzied bursts of guitar swarming, the music becoming more intense and spine-splintering, the atmosphere becoming as terrible as a mass grave. A flickering guitar surfaces in this obliteration to ratchet the tension even more, and that serves as as a prelude to an even more massive stomp and a final surge of violence.
What’s that phrase? “Not for the faint of heart” — that’s an apt warning here."