Review: Sev Lezu – Blood Conscript
I’ve been a fan of Melissa Moore and her various projects since I discovered Crossspitter and her sleaze metal band Sonja; when she announced a new project, this time going into black metal, I was positively pumped, and when I read who her bandmates were and checked their respective bands, I knew I had to check this new project for myself.
Sev Lezu roar into the scene with Blood Conscript and all their promos are true: this is a grinding and furious slab of pure blackened death metal that’s reverent of the ’90s but also unique in its own right. Obviously having a masterclass riff master like Moore will make your project shine, but this is a great band, and each member’s talents and skills complete the whole. Aside from Moore on guitar, we have Sasha Stroud (Belexum, Onw) on drums, vocals, synths, and production duties, FW (Manat) on bass, and all three are great individually and as a unit. The band may be a new entity, but because its members are all seasoned veterans and have such great chemistry together, the end result is a fully formed and defined identity.
My one complaint with this record is how short it is—barely over 20 minutes, with 7 tracks, two of which are instrumentals. Granted, the band packs a punch in under 20 minutes, and those two instrumentals are actually really good, falling in line with the album’s overall atmosphere which is a sinister horror-like one. The album gets good right away but it ends just as fast.
Aside from the short length, there’s very little to complain about here; the band set out to make a high impact black metal record and they succeeded, the production manages to be on the good side of a clean production where everything is audible but without sounding sterile or without dynamics. It really is just the very short run time that bums me out; I know some people tend to dislike long albums but I was left salivating for more, and ended up replaying the album and while I still had a good time, the desire for more just became more intense.
Overall this is a great record, and a great display of skill by its band members. While I still would issue the short length as a disclaimer, what Sev Lezu did on Blood Conscript is still really excellent stuff. Just expect a quick burst of brutality in advance.
4/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
Blood Conscript releases August 28 through Bandcamp.
