Spherical Unit Provided, in short S.U.P, took me on a trip down the rabbit hole with their new album OCTA. For some reason thinking it was a debut album and seeing it billed as melodic death metal, I was taken by surprise when I spun it and found that it is made up of a lot of disparate elements and all around hard to place. The first thing that came to mind was that S.U.P sounds like a mix of death metal, Rammstein riffs and some post-punk work in the bass, mainly (or even leaning on goth as a few moments recall The Sisters of Mercy). But the more I listen the harder it is to escape the fact that vocalist Ludovic Loez sounds like a dead ringer for Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost, Bloodbath). Cool, I thought, here is a band that really likes Paradise Lost yet mixes things up, perhaps aiming at the Symbol of Life era where Paradise Lost themselves tried to sound like Rammstein. As I dug deeper into S.U.P‘s history however, it becomes apparent that they are like Paradise Lost‘s weird cousin, as they released their debut in 1995 and already sounded like Paradise Lost later would on their second album. Even more intriguing, they appeared on a PL tribute album from 2008 called As We Die For….Paradise Lost alongside bands like Orphaned Land. But it is clear that this band has been around for a long while, and Nick Holmes choruses or not, they do things their own way.
OCTA is an odd mix of cleanly sung choruses and industrial metal riffs. Occasionally a doom metal riff or death metal moment will barge into the songs to great effect. A lot of the songs aim at dour moods and are progressive in a way where they build from start to end while the overall feel of it is static. Static as in the same riff or chorus can be repeated throughout an entire song with some constant changes happening in the background. Unfortunately this makes the album feel like a collection of moods and less like it consists of distinct songs. This can feel pretty confusing and even a bit cheap as when “The lights of Eden” just stops mid sentence after the same two words have been repeating for half the song. To their credit, evolving a song by shifting some background elements slowly is hard to do and a tool in the belt of the best long form doom acts. S.U.P do not quite reach all the way with their progressive stew of elements but have intrigued me enough to check out some of their earlier work, when I can wash my brain clean of the possibly unfair Paradise Lost comparisons (but seriously, the cleanly sung chorus in “Open eye” is the most Nick Holmes chorus I have heard even in the last few of their own albums).
