Sacrificio Sacrificio

Sacrificio's debut 12" is among the most anticipated debuts in recent memory by an otherwise obscure project – little is officially known about Sacrificio except that they hail from Spain. Released earlier this year as a limited promo cassette, Sacrificio’s self-titled debut recording has garnered accolades from nearly all who have embraced its dark emanations. While many bands strive to achieve a style and sound that harkens back to the earliest and evilest progenitors of the Black Metal genre, no band has do so with such a degree of authenticity as Sacraficio. Of particular noteworthiness is the production on this recording. The sound, primitive and unaffected, perfectly captures the band’s atavistic drive to channel some of the legendary bands that ushered in the First Wave of Black Metal. Aftershocks of the earliest recordings of Bathory, Sodom, and Hellhammer can be felt pulsing through the songs on this recording. Even more specifically, Sacrificio’s raw sound and reckless performance is a nod to the seminal South American acts that created and cultivated the bestial style as well as the defiant minimalism of early Eastern European bands. Sacrificio utilized archaic equipment to obtain a genuinely classic atmosphere that has been lost for nearly two decades. The mix, in which the instruments, though seemingly recorded live in the studio, are panned hard and thereby separated into the left and right channels, imbues the recording with a brutal clarity and intimate intensity. While the tracks possess the energy and force or a precipitous rehearsal demo, the quality of the recording ensures that all of the instruments are pronounced and audible. This focused and succinct mLP is a welcome and skillfully written return to tradition and portends the issuance of ever more malefic recordings from Sacrificio.