Triumvil Foul - An Oath of Blood and Fire

TRIUMVIL FOUL - An Oath of Blood and Fire (THIRD EYE TEMPLE - 7"EP 2015)

And yet another newly formed putrid death metal project, which I think is worth of your interest. Triumvir Foul hails from USA and the line up consists of couple of musicians, who together are also involved in bands like Ash Borer, Urzeit and some other… Personally I don’t know any of them, but it’s cool that these two guys play together in so many projects, as it means they have many ideas, are creative and I only wonder if any of these other projects are as good as Triumvir Foul is. Because this is simply awesome piece of morbid and obscure death metal. The demo is titled “An Oath of Blood and Fire” and first it was released on tape (100 copies), but lately Third Eye Temple / Godz Ov War have unleashed a 7” vinyl version of it, which is just damn awesome (300 copies only!) and surely a total must to have for all maniacs of this music.

Well, there are four tracks here, one is an Autopsy cover. Style wise we can speak about a killer mixture of the Swedish style with some of the filthiest and most horrid US old school bands, such as Autopsy (of course!) and very early Death. As for that Swedish influence, I truly hear the inspiration from such Carnage, Dismember demos, Nihilist, Grotesque, as well as the newer bands like Repugnant, Verminous and Degial. Not only the sound, guitar tone especially, can you remind you that, but also some melodic accents in few riffs or leads, which sound truly fantastic and which can only be influenced by the good old Swedish death metal! Yeah, “An Oath of Blood and Fire” has songs, which combine the harshness and aggression of old school death metal, embraced in the raw production and obscure, evil atmosphere with the harmonies that makes these songs more memorable and interesting. Basically each song has at least one or two riffs, which will stay in your mind due to its melodic character… but obviously this is not At the Gates, so the music is still as harsh and savage as death metal can and should be, with a good variation of tempos (vide “The Vacuum of Knots”). And maybe the production could have been slightly less messy, but it surely fits bands like Triumvil Foul perfectly, so no complain here…

Summing it all up, what I also like about “An Oath of Blood and Fire” is that it sounds really like an old, early 90’s demo, with this authentic feeling and the right sound, killer songwriting and proper attitude. So, I can only praise and support bands like Triumvil Foul, hoping to hear some more such awesome tunes in the near future.

Standout track: “Abhorrent Depths”

Final rate: 80/100