Taphos - Come Ethereal Somberness

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With only two demos and one EP to their name, Death Metallers from Copenhagen, TAPHOS finally get to show off the true force of their musical prowess with their emotion-hollowing debut “Come Ethereal Somberness”. TAPHOS (not to be confused with Doom Metal band TAPHOS NOMOS) is still fairly new to the scene. Or I assume, considering there is hardly anything to find online about when exactly they formed. Even the names of the band are kept hidden unless you look for them. Their band profile lists the members as only the first letter of each of their names. What is certain is that TAPHOS had a lot of time in two years to really hone their sound to a scalpel’s edge for “Come Ethereal Somberness”. U or Ugar Yildirim absolutely tortures his drum set with pure bone-powdering beats that leave your headphones and ears smoking. With furious, tsunami high riffs, TAPHOS condemns the rest of the world to drown in their hatred.

“Letum” introduces us to TAPHOS’ penchant to disturb, setting the stage for the more intense horrors with bleak landscapes of sound that evoke images of barren wastes under mottled red skies. What is most interesting about TAPHOS’ sound is that while they are considered Death Metal, their oppressive atmosphere and feral vocals sound more akin to Black Metal. Hampus Wahlgren spits and snarls intimidating vocals while U summons howling storms of blast beats in “Impending Peril” and “Ocular Blackness”. Diptychs of sound split songs in half such as “A Manifest of Trepidation”. “Dysfori” is a gorgeous, two-minute guitar interlude with eerie ghosts howling on the breeze. An introspective moment before being sent spiraling into the fray with the uncontrollable madness that is “Insidious Gyres”. Wahlgren’s lyrics strain as his voice box bleeds internally in “Livores” while Andreas Nielson and Mathias Friborg play broken orchestra notes. “Obitum” is serious and demanding, acoustics playing off a fucked-up lullaby.

TAPHOS really elevated their sound to include more melody with cleaner sound production and harsher vocals. This official debut of theirs is desolate but no less deadly than its demo predecessors. Come enter Ethereal Somberness and know what real pain is with TAPHOS.

Songwriting: 10
Originality: 9
Memorability: 9
Production: 10