When the first wave of death metal crashed upon an unsuspecting humanity, I regrettably was too young to experience it. Bands like Death, Autopsy, Morbid Angel Possessed and a whole slew of Swedish bands paved the way for the metal of death, the sickest, most revolting form of art ever created by man. All subgenres we can recognize today, from the trendy Six Feet Under like form to the U.S. brutal death metal hype, originated from those first pioneers.
Nowadays, the typical early nineties sound is scarcely to be found, which is a pity because what those bands back then lacked in technique and musicianship they more than compensated in terms of atmosphere and enthusiasm.

Luckily some bands, most of them Swedish by the way, are still making music into the old death metal vein. Bands like Verminous and Kaamos are cranking out some real classy albums and now we have the debut full length by Repugnant.
“Epitome Of Darkness” is as much a tribute to the old days as it is a statement that death metal began in this primordial form and that we should never forget these roots.

With a sound that lies in between old school Swedish death metal (Grave, Dismember, Entombed) and classic thrash metal (Kreator, Sodom) with hints of Slayer and even some old Metallica it’s clear that we have some old school metal maniacs here.
The ten tracks on “Epitome Of Darkness” all have that special groovy character that makes you tap your feet along with the beat, screaming along the choruses and banging your head in honor of yet another great song.

The sound is in line with the character of the band and album: old school to the bone. The vocals have a great deal of reverb over them and the guitars and drums sound like they were recorded back in ’92. In fact I would not have been surprised if this was a ‘lost’ record from the mid nineties, re-released again.
Sadly enough, while Repugnant have spent eight years to release this debut album, this will also be their requiem as they decided to split up. Hopefully they will regret this foolish decision and reform again to record another great album like “Epitome Of Illusions”.