The Tempter is a project of Alex Wank (Pungent Stench) formed with Tarpiu in the beginning of 2008 to let demons out and anger in. Written after a brief hiatus following Pungent Stench coming to an end, the results are heavy, slow, quite doomy and generally miserable.

The overall pace and tone of some of the riffs and chords remind me of latter day Celtic Frost, however, I don’t feel there’s a pure similarity, its simply the feeling I get from the tunes and to some extent, the guitar tone. The vocals are painful, wrought with sorrow and anguish and venting a depressive anger. Sometimes, this works like on ‘Elissa’, that is full mode moody doom. Other tracks are obviously in the death metal field, which is of a much slower to mid paced level of momentum. ‘Manifestatio (The Oath of Turpitude)’ delivers another slab or harsh deathly prowess that hits the spot. Out of the two tracks I have pin pointed, for me those are the ones that work with the vocal. The remainder, have a similar quality throughout and it’s tough to distinguish between them. My overall take on the album is a touch of indifference, it hasn’t enlightened me or inspired.

Much as I respect the band members and rejoice in their previous musical endeavours, I am not too much in favour of this. The album hasn’t provided enough sparks or excitement and the tracks sound quite similar to each other. The production is however, one great result as its low end dirty and very powerful. Haunted by unholy vocals and its slow to mid paced persona, this album will probably appeal more to the die-hard fans of these musicians.

(6/10 Paul Maddison)