With 16 years of history behind the name, Sex Messiah have long established themselves as stalwarts of the Japanese extreme metal underground. Founded by Osaka-based guitarist Moenos, the band operated as a four-piece for its first decade of existence, albeit with unstable membership. Through the years, Moenos’s vision came into focus, and to realize it she had to assume greater control over the band, which meant stripping it to its essentials. With this new album, “Sexus Mortem, Ouroboros,” released on Moenos’s Sex Desire label, Sex Messiah have fully found their identity. Their most obvious influences come from the South American black/death scene from the 1980s and 90s, particularly the Brazilian bands. And while Sex Messiah’s approach is undeniably studied and authentic—their longstanding relationships with bands like Impurity and Holocausto/Tormentador are a testament to the band’s stylistic integrity—it is also nuanced and characterized by less overt points of reference. “Sexus Mortem, Ouroboros” contains intros and outros that reflect Moenos’s deep appreciation for noise and industrial music, and there are nods to Japanese psychedelia buried within the visceral bestiality of the tracks. The artwork for “Sexus Mortem, Ouroboros,” created by an artist named 072—Moenos’s bandmate in her other band, Immortal Death—perfectly captures with imagery the current of crude blasphemic carnality that defines the music.