Having cool friends means (for the most part) being turned onto cool music. Admittedly, the taste of some of these friends are more diverse and vast than yours truly, so I’m not always onboard. However, when my good pal Dan Ozcanli of local prog death metallers Nucleus sends a band recommendation my way, I listen. I especially take his word on the prog/tech death realm, considering his band is one of the few exemplary acts of that niche today (sorry *insert trendy tech death band here*).
It was just last month, when reviewing the latest Inculter album, Morbid Origin, that I began reflecting upon all the incredible old school thrash bands that have come out of Norway in the past decade. Nekromantheon, Condor, Deathhammer (I know they’ve been active longer, but bear with me.): These bands have been punishing my neck and eardrums since my freshman year of college. Now, there’s another band I can add to this growing list, Sovereign, with their debut album, Altered Realities. Granted, Sovereign is a little leftfield of these aforementioned bands.
Whereas most of these Norwegian thrash bands fuse their aggressive riffs with the unholy spirit of Hellhammer, Bathory, and other first wave black metal bands, Sovereign lies strictly on the death/thrash side of the spectrum, and not just plain old death/thrash, but technical death/thrash at that. Many aspects of Altered Realities can be compared to Death’s Spiritual Healing (1990), from the vocal delivery and guitar tone to the band interplay and the balance between brutality and technicality. The first half of this album is filled with these prog death voyages, specifically the opening title track, the mesmerizing “Futile Dreams”, and “Counter Tech”, which pits death, thrash, prog, and doom against each other in a deadly intergalactic war.
Exciting as Altered Realities‘ front half is, it’s the latter half that really gets my blood pumping. Sovereign didn’t have to choose pure violence, and yet they did anyways. The one-two punch of “The Enigma of Intelligence” and “Synthetic Life” has raised the bar for death/thrash so high in 2024, that I honestly doubt few will come close to touching it. The riffs, drums, and vocals on these songs travel faster than the speed of light, reminiscent of young Sadus in their cracked out, pre-tech glory. This deadly duo are absolutely savage from beginning to end, with “The Enigma” even boasting those Kreator/Possessed toms. The sound of those always sends a blast of serotonin through my veins.
Altered Realities is one of the most thrilling debuts I’ve heard in a long time. This isn’t the sound of a band still finding their way, releasing a glorified woodshop of musical ideas, only to get the hang of things come album #2 or #3. Sovereign has a vision that is focused, accurate, and most importantly, deadly. If this is the beginning, one can only imagine what sci-fi centric chaos they can cause in the future. Maniacs of this galaxy and beyond are bound to be thrashing it up to Altered Realities all year long.
8 out of 10
Label: Dark Descent Records
Genre: Technical Death/Thrash Metal
For fans of: Nocturnus, Death, Sadus