Sxap are a 1 man band from Mammoth Lakes, California that is also a side project of Valdur with a musical style I would describe as being experimental black metal and this is a review of his self titled 2006 album which was released by Bloody Mountain Records.
"Depressions" opens up the album with noise sound effects and dark ambient synths along with some drones before the drums and black metal guitar riffs start to kick in along with some high pitched depressive screams. as well as combining them with the experimental sounds.
"Zero" starts up with some nature sounds and military style drums and then the raw black metal guitar riffs, blast beats and deep blackened death metal growls start coming into the song and a few seconds later it goes back to an avant garde sound along with some spoken word samples and then t he black metal parts start coming in and out of the song and towards the end you can hear a small amount of acoustic guitars.
"Negative 2 Degrees" kicks off with dark ambient sounding synths along with some experimental elements and drone style guitar riffs and a minute later drum beats and deep demonic growls slowly start to come in which also lead up to some spoken word samples along with some distorted guitar leads a few seconds later, halfway through the song you can hear some black metal style guitar riffing slowly creeping into the song along with some drums and the music gets more primitive along with the demonic growls making a return and a few minutes later there is a brief use of chanting being utilized.
"Negative Ten" which is also the closing song off the album begins with some synths that combine experimental, ambient and drone together along with some drum beats in the background and after a couple of minutes spoken word samples start coming into the song along with some dark, black metal guitar riffs that combine melodic and primitive parts together which leads up to some grim and evil sounding screams a few seconds later along with a brief use of blast beats and depressive cries, as the song moves in its goes into a slower direction for awhile along with some guitar leads before returning back to an experimental direction a couple of minutes later while also keeping around the black metal elements
Song lyrics are rarely used on the album, while the production has a very dark, raw and primitive sound along with a couple of the songs being very long and epic in length.
In my opinion Sxap are a very great sounding experimental black metal project and if you are a fan of this musical genre, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Depression" "Negative 2 Degrees". RECOMMENDED BUY.
http://www.bloodymountainrecords.com/sxap.html
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