Album review: Sinsaenum – In Devastation

After seven long years, extreme metal supergroup Sinsaenum return with In Devastation, a 10-track barrage of blackened death metal forged in heartbreak. It’s the band’s first since the devastating loss of iconic drummer and Slipknot founder Joey Jordison in 2021, and guitarist (and Kreator bassist) Frédéric Leclercq’s own father, whose passing added even more emotional weight to this long-awaited third full-length.

Unsurprisingly, grief looms large across the record, but while dealing with two huge losses, the band have decided to defiantly rise from the ashes a to honour their fallen companions with a ferocious defiance. The title-track sets the tone early, a pummelling leveller of a song that opens the floodgates with blast beats, snarling vocals from Mayhem/Tormentor singer Attila Csihar, and a wall of ferocious, calculated chaos.

Elsewhere, Obsolete and Broken offers a welcome shift in dynamics. The band take their foot off the pedal ever so slightly, leaning into Mastodon-esque textures and melodic twists without sacrificing intensity. It’s a brief but effective breather in an otherwise relentless set.

The Last Goodbye, a six-minute emotional leviathan, is the album’s true standout. With eerie acoustics giving way to cathartic savagery, it feels like therapy through distortion, and a moment where the band’s loss is laid bare. It shows the band at their most vulnerable, but still allowing them to spit pure venom. Just when you think they’ve said their piece, Over The Red Wall closes the album with an almighty bang. New drummer Andre Joyzi (formerly Joey's tech) unloads a double-barrelled assault that hits harder than an Usyk knockout, sending the record out in a blaze of blast-beaten glory.

In Devastation is far from perfect, at times uneven and overloaded but it's raw, real, and crushingly heavy. A flawed but fierce return from a band still mourning, still raging, and still standing.

Verdict: 3/5

For Fans of: Kreator, Slipknot, Mastodon

In Devastation is released on August 8 via earMUSIC