MurderWorker - Official Website


Where Scream Becomes Silence

Spain Country of Origin: Spain

1. Order Of The Onimous
2. Information Wants To Be Syndicated
3. Sjakk Matt Jesu Krist
4. Straightening Sharks In Heaven
5. Alle Gegen Alle
6. Man Tenker Sitt
7. Sacrificing To The God Of Doubt
8. Hate Is the Law
9. Rawness Obsolete
2. Purification
3. Butchery Of The Soul
4. Eternal Hate
5. Death By Asphyxia
6. Deprived
7. Killing, Rotting, Eating...
8. Ritual
9. Addicted To Execution
10. Saw Your Fear
11. Blood
12. You Die


Review by Aaron on March 19, 2005.

Darkthrone is one of those bands that never really changes. That’s not negative criticism, whatsoever. There are very few bands that are able to maintain the same musical quality from album-to-album and not come out stale.

What Darkthrone does well is take what they have and direct it towards a previously uncharted vector of darkness and dirt. Sardonic Wrath is no exception to this. From the get-go, with the dark, “Order of the Ambient,” courtesy of the keyboardist from fellow Norwegians, Red Harvest, it drives the listener into levels of the abyss never before heard on a Darkthrone album. The assault continues with songs such as, “Information Wants to Be Syndicated,” “Straightening Sharks in Heaven” (gets my vote for best song title ever), “Man Tenker Sitt” and “Hate is the Law.” These all hark back to the glory that is A Blaze in the Northern Sky, while still combining tried and true Darkthrone-isms into an album that comes out fresh and new.

This album receives a high mark on production, whereas any other band would be roasted, simply because Darkthrone would lose their atmosphere with high production quality – it wouldn’t work. They know how to use low production quality as an instrument unto itself and it comes through in Sardonic Wrath, well.

Fenriz is getting nasty in his old age, his drumming technique has gotten farther away from actually drumming and gotten more into the “beating the shit out of the sonuvabitch” school of percussion. This works great in maintaining the level of primitivism that Darkthrone tends to maintain atmosphere-wise, while still not lapsing into shoddy performance. Nocturno Culto’s guitar play focuses on very dirty, old-school black metal, with definite tips-of-the-hat to punk and thrash. However, in no way does this detract from the black metal ethic they, themselves, have helped to create and strengthen. There are some that attest that Hate Them missed the mark, to them I say Sardonic Wrath hits it and then barrels forward. I pray to unholy gods that 2005 continues musically the way that this album has paved.


Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 10
Production: 8
Originality: 8
Overall: 9

Rating: 8.8 out of 10

   1.38k

Review by Alex on June 1, 2019.

Released in 2018 through Base Record Production, MurderWorker set foot down a depraved path of intolerance for human existence. Twelve crushing tracks oversee the anguish administered by this Spanish death metal quartet. At first, I thought it would be some overproduced modern snooze-fest of triggered drumming that commercial death metal is, but I was forced to retract my notions. Though a fairly clear production is evident on Where Screams Become Silence, one of the main contributors to enjoyment of these 12 tales of torture is the record sounds like a mix of death metal just a few years out of its infancy and a bit of that late 90's Swedish death metal tone. Vocals are decent, and the drumming has an intensity loosely reverberated by the bass. Though Where Screams Become Silence is not ‘groundbreaking’ by any means, it has an interesting motion sensitively toggling between thrash and groove metal. 

I find the first half of Where Screams Become Silence to be a bit more enjoyable given the mid-paced drumming and riffing; while progression though the 2nd half carry with it a very thrashy sort of death metal. For instance, “Killing Rotting Eating” reaches for the gritty old death metal sound while still fetching a punch bass. However, the music on the latter portion appears to be defeated, meaning the 2nd half is not as enjoyable as the former. Even though that’s the case, I think MurderWorker have done a decent job here in preventing repetition, just think that there could have been more added to the guitar soloing department. After hearing the short but effective guitar solo passages on ‘Eternal Hate”, “Killing Rotting Eating” and “Death By Asphyxia”, I was both pleased and let down, as I thought had those solos been introduced more often and extended rather than seem like teases and had they been given the green-light to play more of a role in the makeup of the tunes, Where Screams Become Silence would have been higher in my rankings as it would have added a lasting cogent complexion of that early death metal era. However, the guitar leads do compensate a little for the lack thereof despite the constant chugging chords heard. Plus, the vocal mix of growls and throaty, stifled creaks of sort construct contrasting surfaces that does help the music. 

Still the potential of a better effort looms in the distance; given the song-writing is competent but displays room for improvement that if implemented would see the band shoulder the weight of a more thoughtful endeavor. The appeal of Where Screams Become Silence is still high enough to attract the average death metal listener, however it also shows that MurderWorker is capable of removing from their comfort-zone with the intention of creating something that could push the band to new heights.

Rating: 6.8 out of 10

   1.38k