Artist: Sectarium
Country: Cuba
Label: La Caverna Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2025
Extreme Metal might have been the most popular in some European, North and South American countries, but the long arms of the genre stretched to the most unlikely of places. So it could be that even Extreme Metal was made in Cuba. To be honest, I could not give you a comprehensive listing of bands from that (especially in the 80’s and early 90’s still very much) communist country, had you put a gun to my head. The question is also how much music from the bands that lurked in the shadows and out of sight of the authorities managed to get out of the country. ‘God’s Wrath’ by Sectarium, however, did manage to do so and did its rounds within the circles of extremely fanatical tape traders.
I can imagine that someone at the HQ’s of the Colombia-based La Caverna Records label dug deep into the boxes of old demo tapes and found a copy of ‘God’s Wrath’. Not only did it bring back some fond memories, it even planted the seed of the idea of reissuing this obscure piece of Cuban metal. The tape was handed over to the skilful Patrick W. Engel to restore as much of the music as possible. The result is this CD version, that might actually sound a bit better than the Black Noise Records cassette tape version from 2017 or the American Line Productions released CD edition from 2023. As I do not own copies of those two other recent reissues I can’t verify that properly, but judging from the good work of Engel on the majority of his projects I think it is fair to state that this La Caverna Records’ CD edition might be the best homage to this old proto-Death Metal demo.
Because, that is what it is. I think it is justifiable to file this under “Death Metal”, but basically it is rather hard to really pinpoint what we are actually dealing with. There are hints of really everything that came from the roaring 80’s Extreme Metal. The growling and the brisk pace are definitely most reminiscent to early Death Metal, with quite a few parallels with bands such as pre-album Massacre, Master and Nunslaughter. But the bass-heavy production, the Celtic Frost-like buzzing tuning of the guitars and the occasional slow, dragging pace the music also has very much in common with the Black Metal that feel in between the classic first wave and the explosion of the second. More specifically, there is quite a bit of old Samael, Mystifier and very early Barathrum in these earliest Sectarium recordings.
At the risk of sounding too biased and/or naïve, for a demo that was recorded and released in 1993 in Cuba, the sound isn’t all that bad. Of course, much of that is owed to Engel, but even the direct untampered cassette rips that are floating around on the internet do sound remarkably fine. Still, it might be clear that this is merely fodder for those who like to go on a nostalgia trip down memory lane, have an unquenchable fascination for such old recordings or just Extreme Metal from odd places.
