Formed in 2019, it didn’t take Peruvian death metallers Spectral Souls long to feel the effects of Coronavirus, the global pandemic throwing their plans into chaos within months. After eventually completing work on their full-length debut, the Lima-based act released Towards Extinction (Hammerheart Records) digitally last year but are now reissuing the album in a variety of more traditional physical formats.

Inspired by the usual old school suspects, Spectral Souls also lean heavily on the likes of Dutch deathsters Pestilence, frontman Martín Revoredo often showing similarities to Martin van Drunen. Barking like an irate Rottweiler one moment, sounding like Satan belching up his internal organs after guzzling ten litres of cola the next.

Nihilistic and bleak, Towards Extinction explores themes such as humanity’s capability for self-destruction, religion, politics, and general misery and suffering by means of bludgeoning violence and primal savagery rather than subtlety and nuance. Invisible omnipresent deities come under attack straight away with ‘No More God for Me’, a full throttle opener with more stops and time changes than a replacement bus service. ‘No Hope Humanity’ straddles the border between death and thrash, leaving you with a wonderfully violent mess about show business, mass consumerism and media corruption.

Songs like ‘Fuck the World’, Ego Man’, and ‘Misanthropy’ deal with subjects such as race, rape, religion, corruption, greed, and division. Pretty much everything a growing death metal band needs, all delivered with groove, surgical accuracy, and some frankly ridiculous whammy bar action. The scathing death thrash of ‘Scum Politic’ leaves nothing to the imagination before the atmospheric instrumental ‘Towards Extinction’ is blown away by ‘One Step Away from Extinction’, a song throbbing with early Sepultura-isms and riffs guaranteed to remove faces from skulls.

Before the Death-infused ‘Behind the Lying Glass’ closes the album in venomous style, ‘Crystal Generation’ appears to take a sneering swipe at Millennials and Gen Z, the band of forty-somethings claiming the younger generations are merely weak and offended by everything these days. Now, while lyrics like “fighting for reasons you don´t really know, you march against intolerance just because is trend!” certainly sound suitably edgy and death metal, following them with a song about loneliness, suicide, and anxiety (‘Major Depressive Disorder’) is likely to leave the band open to ridicule by the very people they took aim at previously.

That criticism aside, Towards Extinction is an absolute beast of a record. A riff-driven, sweep-picked, dive-bombing masterclass in old-school death/thrash with a dirty production and a modern edge. Feeling content, cheerful, and happy with life? You soon won’t be.

Buy the album here:

https://spectralsouls.lnk.to/towardsextinction

8 / 10

GARY ALCOCK