Among them, the track from the demo has been re-recorded for the album, and the wider use of different instruments broadens and shows more clearly the musical palette of the project, which combines a variety of characteristics around the basic black metal pattern. Sepulchre by the Sea also employs solid clean vocals at times, most notably in a the wonderful "Slices of Death", while the most intense moments line in the great guitar lines of the self-titled track, "And So It Crumbles" and the middle part of "Behind the Walls". The last of these three takes a calmer turn towards the end to give way to the final track of Conqueror Worm, "Plutonian Shores", a lengthy composition that touches seventeen minutes duration and goes through all the phases of the band's sound, from clean to heavy parts and in between.
There are a lot of interesting ideas in Conqueror Worm, which wouldn't make it just typical post-black metal, still I think there is space for improvement in terms of cover artwork and production, with the latter having the potential, in my opinion, to give a completely new dynamic edge to the project if handled properly to give space to the compositions to really show their worth. Sepulchre by the Sea's first effort is a fine offering of black metal that isn't direct and raw, for fans of atmospheric / post-black metal artists and of course, for lovers of Edgar Allan Poe.
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