The Last Oblation - "Ante Ruinam" (self-produced, 2018; Narcoleptica Productions, 2018)

Band: The Last Oblation
Title: Ante Ruinam
Genre: Death Metal with Black Metal influences
Time: 25.18 min
Release Date: 22nd March 2018 (self-produced)
          10th June 2018 (Narcoleptica Productions)
Rating: 79/100











It's never too late! In fact, Juanjo Pérez aka Kasky Svart (ex-Human Carnage), in July 2018, contacted me after reading my review about his friends in Moribundo. He proposed me to review the debut album of his new band called The Last Oblation and, obviously and considering their genre, I said yes without any hesitations. So, here is the review about the self-produced "Ante Ruinam", that the band, founded as a one-man project in 2016, released in the shape of a duo comprising also the singer Dani Torres aka Dani Kraken.

Including 7 songs titled always in Latin, "Ante Ruinam" shows only 25 minutes of an excellent combination between black and death metal. The style is aggressive, dynamic and modernist and offers many different situations, so to range from technical death metal passages to creepy black metal mid-tempos, and there are also short, gloomy acoustic parts, some brutal death metal as well more thrash metal-oriented influences (like the ones in the closing "In Ruinam"). In addition, there is even a track totally focused on mid-tempos such as "Omnibus Sileo", that contains some melodic passages. But a characterizing feature of The Last Oblation comes surely from the technical skills as guitarist of Juanjo, that are really notable, and this allow to him to create memorable riffs that, sometimes, are so virtuosistic to show an extreme prog approach (like in the same "In Ruinam"). He is truly a riff machine, also because he is used to create many layered riffs, that are useful to give a more deep sound to the songs. So, I think that his guitarwork is the real point of force of The Last Oblation in this album but this without undervaluing the good vocals of Dani, that offers a classic alternation between growls and screams. Now, even though a human drummer is ALWAYS better, I must say that the drum-machine has been well programmed, so the numbers flow fluid and powerful. But, I repeat, a human drummer is ALWAYS better!

Strong of very solid tracks like "Aequitate, Episteme, Exitium", "Proelium" and "In Ruinam" (for me, these last two ones are pure masterpieces!), is a remarkable album that, showing a sort of mix between Morbid Angel and Belphegor, promises a nice future for a Spanish band that, risking a lot, debuted with it without releasing anything before. Maybe, it needed one more song because it is too short to be a black/death metal album (but it is more death metal-oriented, to say the truth). Anyway, the future seem to be already nice for The Last Oblation. I am saying this because, firstly, "Ante Ruinam" was released some months ago in a physical format through the Russian label Narcoleptica Productions; and, secondly, The Last Oblation have recently became a full line-up band (that has a fantastic and almost war metal aesthetics, as you can see above!), mostly consisting of ex or current Human Carnage members, included a human drummer. Fuck, I said that a human drummer is ALWAYS better haha! (below is the lyric video of the opening song "Aurum Deceptio")

Tracklist:

1 - Aurum Deceptio
2 - Omnibus Sileo
3 - Sanguinem Paenitentiam
4 - Aequitate, Episteme, Exitium
5 - Principium
6 - Proelium
7 - In Ruinam

Line-up:

Dani Kraken - vocals
Kasky Svart - guitars/bass/drum-machine

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/TheLastOblation/
Narcoleptica Productions: https://narcolepticaprod.bandcamp.com/merch