Release Date August 28th, 2026
Format Vinyl/Cassette/Digital
Genre Black/Death Metal
Origin U.S.A.
Formed in 2022 and spread across NYC, Philadelphia and the Pacific Northwest, Sev Lezu is the work of Sasha Stroud on drums, vocals and synthesizers, Melissa Moore on guitar and FW on bass, names already tied to Belexum, Crossspitter, Sonja and Manat. Their sound pulls from the icy Swedish school of Dissection and Bathory and the Finnish filth of Sargeist, Horna and Satanic Warmaster, then runs it through the rhythmic brutality of Terrorizer and Nasum with a few gallops lifted straight from Iron Maiden. "Blood Conscript" is their first full length through Ordovician Records.
Stroud recorded, mixed and mastered the album himself between 2023 and 2025 at Artifact Audio in NYC and in Portland, with Mia Priest of ex-Impiety guesting on guitar and writing duties for "Corpse Step". The lyrics deal with ancient mythology, a pantheon of cruel gods and bloodshed paid back in full, and the artwork by Tara Atefi wraps the whole thing in the same old world darkness. Roughly twenty one minutes of grinding melodic black-death, tremolo lines that actually stick in the head, drumming that switches between blast fury and marching stomp, and a production that lets the bass be heard without smoothing the edges.
The riffs hit their mark more often than not, and when Moore lets a melody ring out over the blasting the album finds its most vicious moments. Where it loses a little ground is in the middle stretch, where a couple of tracks run through the same trick without raising the stakes, and the vocals, effective as they are, keep to one register for most of the running time. A hard, bloody debut from a band with the chops to make the next one hurt more.
|7.5
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