Review: Serpent Of Old – Ensemble Under the Dark Sun
“Ensemble Under the Dark Sun” is my first contact with Serpents Of Old. The band emerge from Turkey with a sound that meshes black metal’s cold void with death metal’s crushing devastation and doom’s oppressive atmosphere. They strike with the weight of ancient ruin to form a debut that doesn’t just welcome darkness, but it embodies it. The result is ambitious, precise, sometimes overwhelming, but when it hits, it hits with searing force.
“The Sin Before The Great Sin” sets the bar: slow, doom-laden intro, tremolo guitars that slice, drums that growl beneath the surface, vocals that lash like spectral bile. There’s a slow build, a tension that tightens before letting you fall. From there the album shifts between brooding menace and relentless assault. Songs like “Unsaturated Hunger and Esoteric Lust” and “From the Impending Dusk” move with sheer intensity; combining dissonance, atmosphere, and melody in equal measure. The longer songs allow room for dynamics: quiet dread dripping into blast beats, melody emerging from chaos, bass and drums weaving grooves as much as pounding.
Where this album excels is in its texture and its sonic density. Guitars layer with harmonics and abrasions; decay and distortion are sculpted rather than smeared. The drums are a force: thunderous when they need to be, subtle when silence must dominate. Even in the album’s darker corners, where mood threatens to engulf, Serpent of Old provide just enough ligh to parse structure from gloom. The instrumental “Virtue of the Devil In His Loins” offers a moment of respite, contrast, a reminder that even in darkness there is breathing space. The pacing is mostly strong—tracks flow into one another, longer pieces justify their lengths. Yet there are times when the weight of sound edges toward fatigue; a few passages linger in atmosphere without sufficient development, the relentless texture occasionally demanding too much from listener patience.
Production is a highlight: rough edges preserved, clarity maintained. Each instrument occupies space in the mix. Vocals cut through without dominating; ambient layers are audible without drowning the heaviness. Solo guitar flourishes, tremolo passages, dissonant riff, that aren’t lost beneath a wall of sound but emerge with impact.
“Ensemble Under the Dark Sun” is excellent, yet far from flawless. Its sheer density and sometimes lack of variation in some mid‐album moments keep it from being truly transcendent. But what Serpent of Old achieve here is rare: they have built a debut that not only professes intensity, but delivers it with craft, depth, and emotional weight. It is both brutal and beautiful, oppressive and intimate.