Spectral - "Neural Correlates of Hate" (Loud Rage Music, 2018)

Band: Spectral
Title: Neural Correlates of Hate
Genre: Progressive Technical Death Metal
Time: 43 min
Year: 12th March 2018
Rating: 86/100












Incredible but true! Ciprian Martin, leader and guitarist/bassplayer of Spectral (founded in the now far 2004), written all the 9 songs of their debut album "Neural Correlates of Hate" in 2013 but, back then, he hadn't the right people to record it. After some years, those people were founded not only in the vocalist Andrei Calmuc (CodeRed, ex-Indian Fall) but even in a French session drummer that is nothing else than Romain Goulon, known to playing in the past in bands such as Necrophagist, Blasphemer (Italy), Benighted and many many others. So, "Neural Correlates of Hate" has been finally recorded and, then, released under the auspices of the Romanian label Loud Rage Music.

This album is incredible because it combines the most refined technical skills with a stunningly precise but extreme ferocity, so you have to expect to listen to many complex tempo changes as well a lot of killing blast-beats, also thanks to the imaginative and a bit jazz-influenced drumming of Romain. While Andrei spews forth a storm of deep growls alternated with some screams and rare spoken vocals, Ciprian show also a very nice melodic taste even expressed through elegant neoclassical influences that can be especially listenable during the plenty of shredding guitar solos into the album. In addition, the band loves so much to play long instrumental sequences in which also the bass is often able to create its own lines, as shown very well in the almost 9 minutes of "Ashes to Dust". This means that the sound of Spectral is really embracing and full of details, also because there are many layered riffs due to the lead guitar (in this sense, the efforts by Ciprian are truly remarkable!).

The aforementioned "Ashes to Dust" is one of the longer episodes of the album along with "Hallucinatory Authorization", another 8-minute track. Now, if the former is a little bit prolix and uneffective in certain moments but containing some acoustic guitars and even, almost at its end, a vaguely mysterious black metal mood with minimalistic keyboards, the latter is surely my favorite song of the album. This because "Hallucinatory Authorization" has some amazing vortexing riffs and, really, a "hallucinatory" atmosphere especially during a visionary and experimental part (with "robotic" vocals!) very close to some works by Cynic. Other mentionable tracks are "Empathy" with its crazy noise outbursts, or "Divided We Fall", a song that shows thrash metal influences justifiable since Spectral were born as a death/thrash metal band under the moniker of Katalepsia.

Reinforced by famous guests such as Christian Münzner (ex-Obscura and ex-Spawn of Possession, now in Alkaloid) and Calin Paraschiv (Pestilence), at some guitar solos, "Neural Correlates of Hate" is an amazing and creative debut album perfect for everyone into technical and progressive extreme stuff like Death, Pestilence, Cynic, Necrophagist, Spawn of Possession and similar acts. I don't know very well the Romanian extreme metal scene (apart Negura Bunget, obviously!) and, if I am not mistaken, I written my first review about a band from Romania only some months ago in occasion of the new album by Sincarnate. So, if Romania is able to create masterpieces of the calibre of "Neural Correlates of Hate", then I think it's time to explore better its scene!

Tracklist:

1 - Artificial Storage
2 - Ashes to Dust
3 - Nihilist
4 - Empathy
5 - Neural Correlates of Hate
6 - Hallucinatory Authorization
7 - Hatred
8 - Divided We Fall
9 - Into the Further

Line-up:

Andrei Calmuc - vocals
Ciprian Martin - guitars/bass
Romain Goulon - drums

Guests:

Christian Münzner - guitar solos ("Nihilist", "Into the Further")
Calin Paraschiv - guitar solo ("Divided We Fall")

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpectralOfficial/
Bandcamp: https://spectral-official.bandcamp.com/
Loud Rage Music: http://www.loudragemusic.com/