The Heretic's Torch

Examiner.com: An Extended Outlet

2012-01-21T00:44:00.000-05:00

This is just a post to note that I have joined Examiner.com as a writer on heavy metal. I will be posting here multiple times a week, mostly sharing relevant metal news and my analysis of the significance and meaning of the news. In the future, I will also be posting more elaborate articles on various subjects pertaining to heavy metal and influences on heavy metal, and perhaps reviews and interviews of worthy local music. Please follow my Examiner writings as a sort of extension of The Heretic's Torch. My Examiner page can be viewed by clicking on this icon:

If you can, please subscribe to my profile in order to receive an e-mail update whenever I post an article. To do so, access one of the articles that I have written and click on the "Subscribe to get instant updates" link that is next to the article date, below my name and the article title. Doing so helps me get paid. Also, sharing my articles on sites like facebook, myspace, twitter, and reddit further contribute to my potential revenue, so please help a poor writer actually earn a couple bucks from his time, energy, and work.

Necrovation - Breed Deadness Blood (2008)

2012-01-13T00:31:00.000-05:00

Necrovation is for those who are looking to recapture (or perhaps see firsthand) a vision of the culture and legacy of the Swedish death metal scene of the late 80s and early 90s. Although they are just one of many newer names that have popped up within the past decade, however, they do manage to stand out a bit from the crowd, and not just for being one of the first to successfully release a full-length, that being Breed Deadness Blood. This is perhaps because they draw not only on the bands who actually played the music that they are more or less trying to emulate, but they also take inspiration from the bands that got their predecessors to pick up their guitars in the first place, which in a sense gives Necrovation’s sound a more genuine quality than most others. What you’ll hear is not only Merciless, Nihilist, Entombed, Carnage, Grave, and Unleashed, but also traces of Autopsy, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Celtic Frost, and Obituary, such as in the closing track, “Divinity Obscure.”

All of the typical aesthetic characteristics of the early Swedish death metal scene are present here; whether one objects to such imitation is another matter which will not be an issue here, as what is foremost at the moment is the strength of the material itself and the authenticity with which it is played. This seems to be an underlying current in some of the lyrics as well, paying homage to their predecessors not merely via echoing their lyrical content, but also imbuing beneath that content a second reading which is in veneration of the past. In “Dark Reverie,” for example, this seems most clear. The song title itself hints at the possibility. The band associates their brand of death metal heavily with darkness and death, unsurprisingly, so to revere the darkness or to do so in a dark manner suggests the possibility that this song could be aware of the undercurrent which speaks of the importance of the early Swedish death metal scene, while at the same time expressing disdain for the pretenders to the throne who poison the essence of their craft, twisting it into something that it was never meant to be. It is unnecessary to examine in depth the lyrics to discover the mere possibility of a double meaning to the lyrics (whether or not they are indeed there intentionally); however, one particular line resonates, and that is “rules of death apply in eclipse of life.” Not only is this line delivered with particular earnestness, but it lends itself quite easily to the aforementioned analysis. It suggests that although the Swedish scene as it was once understood is no longer present, the principles by which it was governed are still essential to the form of music that is its “twisted relic of years,” and which must be adhered to should any attempt to revive that musical legacy, which just so happens to be what the band is doing.

It is unlikely that any would contest that Necrovation does not adhere faithfully to their predecessors’ vision. One may protest that they adhere to it too loyally and say nothing of their own, but that is another matter. That Breed Deadness Blood is firmly grounded in that scene cannot be denied, whether it is through the bile with which the vocals are delivered, or the subtly punk influenced drum arrangements which especially characterized the earliest Swedish death metal bands like Nihilist, or the crushing rhythmic breakdowns which came to be an element that epitomizes the “Swedish death metal sound.” The buzzsaw-like guitar tone and low end of the bass guitar leave the listener with little breathing room and a pounding heart from the sheer power of the sound produced on this album, which was actually a bit old by the time this album finally saw the light of day (as it was recorded in August of ’06 and finally unleashed a year and a half later in February ’08). The production is somehow crisp, with everything being perfectly audible, which especially allows the harmonies and solos to shine through, yet remaining dirty and raw. If production was among the issues which delayed the release of this album, then it was certainly worth the wait, because the production really helps to bring these songs to life.

It is unnecessary to dwell precisely on the sounds of the music, given its largely derivative nature; it should suffice enough to say merely that if anyone both wants to and is willing to relive that early 90s death metal atmosphere and perhaps catch on to its predecessor (it would be unfair to call it a reincarnation), then exploring what Necrovation is doing today would be a good idea. This is a pure act of indulgence—the equivalent of one with a sweet tooth falling into a decadent ecstasy of eating some fine chocolate. For those who live this music, this is a fine chocolate which fulfills everything that one would expect it to fulfill, containing all of the desired characteristics of its given form. From the sinister and blasphemous artwork, to the buzzsaw guitar, to the dark and twisted lyrics, Breed Deadness Blood offers the death metal disciple the full package, if one chooses to partake.

In Solitude - In Solitude

2011-12-22T17:52:00.001-05:00

Amongst a small group of resurgent classic heavy metal bands is

Sweden

’s In Solitude, blending the unique melodicism and occult aesthetics of Mercyful Fate with the archetypal Iron Maiden and Judas Priest metal sound to form In Solitude, their debut album. Traces of vast arrays of heavy metal bands from various scenes are surely also influences, which provide a small bit of variety to the proceedings. However, the fundamental elements here can all be traced back to Mercyful Fate, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. In “Kathedral”, for example, the blend of Judas Priest and Mercyful Fate is highly evident, from the Priest-like opening riff to the Mercyful Fate styled break midway in which the short, sharp drum hits underscore a classic upward driving riff and melodic lead playing while the vocalist theatrically wails, behind which are falsetto vocals utilized in order to achieve the same energy of the early Mercyful Fate material. While there is not much on display that can be said to be anything approximating originality, what it is, at the very least, is both very well done and faithful to the great heritage of traditional metal, capturing, for the most part, the subtlety and nuance of the aforementioned bands in such a way that makes for a listen that doesn’t feel wholly redundant.

In Solitude’s music takes on a very theatric and narrative quality in that each song is treated as a performance, almost akin to a play, in which a story is being related, and the song responds to the storyline accordingly. Not that this is a concept album by any means; perhaps a thematic album. Nonetheless, the King Diamond tendency to derive musical ideas from the lyrical, or vice versa, so that they are complimentary, is an evident trait in their sound. The varying vocal approaches incorporated into “Witches Sabbath” are a demonstration of this relationship, as the falsettos return for the chorus and a sinister, low register is employed for the demonstrative command of the bridge, “build now a circle, of fire! And drink from your cups. Hail high the baphomet!” The aforementioned break in “Kathedral” is yet another example, as is “Faceless Mistress,” where the chorus of “nothing but death can stop them tonight, in vicious delight” takes the song into a new mood as the shifting tone of the lyrics takes on an ominous, cautionary mode.

Given that they draw so heavily on Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Mercyful Fate, it is little surprise that In Solitude’s music is peppered with leads and solos and melodies used as a counterpoint to some heavy riff. The lead guitarist is an excellent soloist with a strong feel for appropriately harmonized solos that go well with the music to which it is subservient. Main passages, such as the beginning of “Temple of the Unknown,” are driven by a primary heavy riff, over which is played a corresponding melodic at a higher register which allows that main fundamental to reflect a greater variety of moods as the melody shifts above it. Major musical shifts are often intimated by some lead playing acting as a bridge from one movement to the next. They utilize the layering of varying guitar sounds very effectively, successfully capturing, at least in essence, the attention to detail in the melodic writing of Tipton/Downing, Murray/Smith, and Shermann/Denner that were so integral to the sound of these foundational institutions.

What is interesting about this band is that, while their music is very melodic, laced with Iron Maiden inspired harmonies throughout, it is also very dark, influenced obviously by Mercyful Fate, but also perhaps enlightened by extreme metal, not perhaps in sound, but in essence, as In Solitude shares members with the death metal band Invidious, formerly known as Katalysator. Indeed, the bands even share a vocalist. Nonetheless, this is pure heavy metal, though the bands’ affinity for extreme metal perhaps fuels the their interest in dark, occult subject matter, which makes Mercyful Fate’s Satanic lyrics even more appealing. Similarly to Portrait, who describe their sound as “heavy metal darkness,” this new breed of heavy metal bands tends to be more attracted to the dark, evil, occult aspects of the genre, and one wonders how much this relates to the later developments in extreme metal.

Lyrics in metal as a whole are much darker and evil than they were when Mercyful Fate first came out and their over the top theatrics were lambasted by such stalwarts as the brilliant minds who ran Kerrang! in the early 80s. In Solitude is in this context hardly extreme, and not nearly on the cutting edge of anything, but are in fact treading water in the vast ocean of those who came decades before them. For those who feel there is no place for such bands, In Solitude is certainly not going to offer any surprises. On the other hand, there are those who find value in such bands that, while not being ‘retro’ in terms of a trend mentality, are nonetheless centrally derived from what has been the foundation of this style of music for three decades; for these people, there is little to be found that can match the quality of this band. Besides, whether it’s 2008 or 1988, heavy metal of this style was still derivative; it is not as though proximity on a timeline corresponds to compositional quality, and In Solitude seems to have it down better than many bands of similar caliber who are two decades their senior.

The Gates of Slumber - Conqueror

2011-11-15T01:08:00.000-05:00

With Conqueror, The Gates of Slumber continues to advance toward a perfect marriage between heavy metal and doom metal. Not to say that the two have ever been mutually exclusive, but in here is a clear convergence of influences from Saint Vitus and Black Sabbath to Manilla Road and Cirith Ungol, taking cues from both sides of the dividing line. Continuing in the tradition of “Angel of Death” from their previous album, Conqueror opens on a high note with a burst of energy in the form of “Trapped in the Web,” a fantasy tale of an encounter with a menacing spider from your darkest nightmares. Indeed, this album overall follows an upbeat trajectory in comparison with Suffer No Guilt, which was subject to long intervals of side tracking and jamming, complete with three songs exceeding 12 minutes, in which can be found some of the slowest traditional doom metal this side of Warning and Reverend Bizarre.

This is not completely absent from Conqueror, but it is much more constrained and controlled, as exemplified by the eponymous song. “Dark Valley Suite” is a 16 minute ode to the legendary Robert E. Howard, a writer that has quite obviously come to greatly influence The Gates of Slumber. It is divided into four segments, during one of which Karl Simon gives his best attempt at an emotive reading of a truly haunting poem written by Howard, in which he reflects on his own imminent death. Whether or not the desired effect is achieved here is up for the band to decide, but it will certainly not be appreciated by all. Others, such as myself, will find in it a certain charm that comes from the heart, which is why we listen to this style of metal to begin with. Technical prowess is secondary to heart, and what the band may lack vocally or elsewhere is made up tremendously in the conviction and honesty found in the music.

There is, however, overall a shift toward the more controlled and faster, a minor departure from the past album, and this is not necessarily an entirely good thing. I personally found the seemingly improvised jams in some of the earlier songs to be extremely effective and to epitomize what the band was all about, losing themselves in the music that they love to play. Conqueror, while excellent, is not the band’s shining achievement in my eyes. There is perhaps too much streamlining to be found within, an effort, conscious or unconscious, of making the songs more easily digestible to the average listener. A song such as “Riders of Doom” would feel a bit out of place on this album. They have done better, though that is not to diminish the quality found here.

Karl Simon’s guitar playing on this album is excellent, as it was on the albums prior. The solos especially just explode with energy and passion, much like Jerry Fogle or Mark Shelton. These are notes struck from the heart, not from the mind, and that is the playing style that works best for this form of metal, which relies so heavily on the emotive aspect of the music for its power. The driving force in such songs as “Children of Satan” and “The Machine” are undeniably powerful. The bass work of Jason McCash, as always, is excellent, never overplaying, but not merely echoing the guitar either. He is also a real presence on stage, the intensity of his play being as much a part of the song as the notes struck. He, as the rest of the band, is a true joy to experience in a live setting, animating the music on disc more than is possible in the studio. It is a boon to witness these songs come to life in a live setting, which greatly assists in appreciating the material in a more personal way, which is important for a form of music as personal as doom metal tends to be.

Personality is one of the primary elements that make The Gates of Slumber one of the best bands around today. This is not merely the personas of the musicians, but rather tangible characteristics of the music itself. The guitar playing chiefly, but also the vocals, which come off as lacking eloquence, to put it nicely; and yet the vocals are perfect for the music, and should not be any other way. Even the times in which they vary the way that the vocals are delivered, such as in the aforementioned passage in “Dark Valley Suite” and in the underrated “To Kill and be King,” it just feels appropriate. This is real music played by real people with real passion and a damn good sense of what they want to do, and that counts for more than anything else.

Jex Thoth - Jex Thoth

2011-10-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

The music of Jex Thoth is a gateway between the past and the present, taking the sounds of the 60s and 70s into the contemporary music world, and managing to not come across as utterly derivative. Reciting tales of paganism and the occult, Jex Thoth is an immersive experience, absorbing the listener into its embrace with its invitingly warm production and aesthetically inoffensive tones. It is an album that nullifies the significance of genre boundaries, having arguably only one foot in the realm of heavy metal as envisioned by the likes of Black Sabbath and Pentagram, the other falling somewhere in the midst of the various subgenres of rock that were largely contemporary with the aforementioned. It is the progressive and acid folk oriented rock inspirations that separate this band from the vast traditional doom metal explosion currently on hand, stylistically speaking, and that ultimately make this a rewarding listen, even aesthetically, with the hazy and thin production battling against the crushing guitar tone and the rich sound of the organ. It is a refreshingly unrefined work that nonetheless reveals a power and depth no longer reached in this style of music today.

This is music that is constructed upon its impact on the emotions, and on sentimentality, generated by the sweeping shifts in mood, awakening the senses through its various expressive channels. It ranges from the dismal to the sublime, the one being instrumental to the construction of the other. It is both melancholic and energetic; all at once sifting between airy psychedelic passages, revolving around swirling melodies amidst a cornucopia of buoyant instruments: the flute and the synthesizer, the piano and the organ, and even bongos. At other instances, it is bursting with prototypically Sabbathian power chords, utilized sparingly, yet effectively. Especially in the Equinox Suite is found the dreamily quixotic aura that is the strength and grace of Jex Thoth’s music. Blissfully ignorant of the troubles of the outside world and entirely indulgent within its own sphere of musical therapy, Jex Thoth is an idyllic utopia nonetheless filled with horrors and dangers, yet never at the sacrifice of the sensation of utter tranquility.

The most distinctive element of the band is, of course, the vocals of Jex Thoth, not unsurprising given the name of the band. She takes on an iconic role, becoming larger than the music itself, almost as the living embodiment of the spirit of the band. She is Jex Thoth, the person and the ideal, the music pulsing with the divine energies of the concepts by which the music is driven. The various images of her in occult garb, replete with dark, deep-set and glaring eyes, or as the “Warrior Woman,” perpetuate the enigmatic and mystical quality about her, as does the band’s evident wish to leave their lyrics unpublished, citing the cause as the lyrics being too personal in nature. Not to overstate the obvious symbolic gesture of the band’s frontwoman, Jex Thoth is also a highly invigorating and soulful singer, bleeding every ounce of passion into her vocal performance with a genuine sense of sincerity that resonates with every note. She is to Jex Thoth what Tania Duarte is to Reino Ermitaño, perhaps even more so. It is a struggle not to fall into typical clichés when referring to energetic and passionate frontwomen, referring to them as perhaps sirens or other similarly enchanting mythical depictions of women, and indeed this is often encouraged by the bands themselves through visual and other means. After all, a band statement regarding their change of name from Totem to Jex Thoth cited that they were “dropping all Totemic facades in favor of our greater goal...to animate the divine through our muse and avatar as she exists here and now::::: JEX THOTH!” Nonetheless, what can be said purely in plain speech is that she provides a captivating and utterly convincing demonstration that works in sync with the rest of the band flawlessly.

There is, after all, a ‘rest of the band,’ and one that deserves to be acclaimed. Grim Jim, evidently the brother of Jex Thoth (better known to their families as James and Jessica Toth), is the main protagonist behind the scenes, and shares guitar duties with newer recruit Silas Paine in addition to recording the bass and synthesizer. Paine in addition plays the flute and bouzouki, “a member of the 'long neck lute' family”, while Johnny Dee plays the various percussive instruments, leaving Zodiac to orchestrate the arrangements for keyboard and organ. In addition to simply being very solid musically, the band as a whole does a remarkable job of incorporating the aforementioned ‘non-standard’ instruments in an unobtrusive fashion, much to the benefit of what is surely their primary target audience, namely traditional doom metal fans who most likely don’t have a great measure of exposure to the outside influences that the band injects into their sound.

All that need be said of these outside influences is the project Wooden Wand, featuring the Toths and Zodiac, a band admittedly a bit out of my element, but exhibiting the primary traits of the aforementioned progressive, psychedelic, and acid folk rock genres that bleed their way into Jex Thoth’s sound, made most obvious of course by the Bobb Trimble cover of “When the Raven Calls,” a song that hardly feels out of place on the rest of the album. A special mention should also be given to the striking album cover drawn by Albert Witchfinder, formerly of Reverend Bizarre, now fronting Spiritus Mortis. It is a vivid image of the utopian and carefree atmosphere that belies the sinister undercurrent that pervades the entirety of the work. There is much more to be said for the symbology of artwork alone, but it can be left at the evident fact that it is an immaculate visual representation of the band’s music: dreamy, fanciful, mystical, spirited, innocent, and naïve, yet cognizant, dangerous, deceptive, elusive, and powerful.

Lord Vicar - Fear No Pain

2011-08-19T03:19:00.002-04:00

Endless pain hurts my soul

But no cry can be heard

Just some whispers escape my teeth

As I curse this land

I am a man who has nothing

Without your love I can't go on

When I laid down your frozen hand

I let go life

Now the dream is almost over

Sands of Time are running lower

Through broken glass

One could argue that Lord Vicar largely continues on from where Reverend Bizarre left off and not be wrong at all. There are plenty of moments throughout Fear No Pain that feel like Reverend Bizarre if Chritus was their vocalist. The guitar tone remains uncompromisingly heavy, with the ever-present driving bass lines to accompany the main riff. Chritus’s vocals sound utterly strained and beyond hope, as a man hanging on to his sanity by a hair’s breadth. The best asset that the band has, however, is the ability to make long songs not seem as long as they are. Other bands seem to have the opposite issue; their songs are shorter, but they drag on more. This is a problem that Lord Vicar luckily does not face. Even the 14 minute closing track, “The Funeral Pyre”, seems relatively short, especially in comparison to the excessively long tracks on Reverend Bizarre’s final outing, So Long Suckers. “The Funeral Pyre” is actually shorter than the time it takes for the track “Sorrow” on the previously mentioned album to even get going, for comparison’s sake.

Lord Vicar can be summed up, albeit unfairly, as a distillation of the more rocking spirit found in the uptempo moments of Reverend Bizarre’s discography; looking at the song credits should reveal this fact to be not terribly surprising, as Peter Vicar’s name tends to have been tied to these tracks more often than not. There really is no way humanly possible to not be moved by the main riff in “A Man Called Horse”, barring deafness. Likewise, “Pillars Under Water” and “The Last of the Templars” provide similarly addictive grooves, escape from which is not an option, let alone a desirable one. In addition to the colossal riffing, however, there are a few very effective acoustic passages, accompanied by some powerful and evocative vocal performances by Chritus, especially the one that closes “The Spartan,” which recounts the emotional final moments of a fallen warrior. There are also sparsely used keyed instruments, which were occasionally featured in Reverend Bizarre as well.

Some of these songs, or at least parts of these songs, were originally written for the now panned fourth and fifth Reverend Bizarre albums that were planned to be recorded before they decided to fold. Lord Vicar brings forth one last glimpse of what could have been, had things gone differently between the dysfunctional personalities that once defined Reverend Bizarre. I’m sure this project has come as a great consolation to the many who mourned the loss of Peter Inverted’s former band, and they do an admirable job of appeasing the older fans who have carried over as well as being their own band. I suspect that future recordings may continue to differentiate the two bands, though it would be impossible (and unwanted) to bury Peter’s distinctive riffing style simply because it is coming under a new heading. For now, however, comparisons between the two projects are not only fair, and not only warranted, but inevitable.

As much as many of the musical passages throughout the album reflect the musical history of the songwriter, this band’s lyrics also bear resemblance to their predecessors in their penchant for favoring historical and legendary tales of doom, betrayal, and despair. Where Reverend Bizarre had “Cromwell”, “Cirith Ungol”, “The Wandering Jew”, and “Caesar Forever”, Lord Vicar has “Down the Nails”, “Pillars Under Water”, and “The Spartan”. Unsurprisingly, “The Spartan” recounts the fate of the legendary three hundred Spartan warriors who fought against insurmountable odds, knowing that there was no chance that they would survive, simply because it was their honor and their way of life. “Pillars Under Water” follows more along the lines of “Cirith Ungol” in its inspiration from fictional literature, the latter coming from Tolkien and the former coming from Lovecraft. In this song, the protagonist finds himself at the mercy of the Children of Dagon, coming face to face with the ancient, unspeakable horrors that one hopes lurk only in our faintest nightmares. “Down the Nails” speaks of the apostle Peter, who denies Jesus three times, his ultimate fate coming in the form of inverted crucifixion. Curious that Peter Vicar would choose to call himself Peter Inverted for this project then. The relation between the two is hardly impossible or even unlikely.

This is an album for doom metal fans; indeed, it’s not likely that many people unfamiliar with Reverend Bizarre or Count Raven or doom metal more broadly speaking would ever even stumble upon this album, let alone have the historical framework to fully appreciate it. For the initiated, however, Fear No Pain has a lot to offer. Perhaps it’s all not terribly original, but there is enough here to hold the interests of any true fan of this form of music, whether it’s the continuation of Peter Vicar’s addictively rocking rhythms or the glorious return to form of Chritus, the legendary vocalist of Finnish legends Count Raven and on Saint Vitus’s highly underrated C.O.D. album. The band has already earned their deserved accolades from many of the key figures in today’s international doom metal scene for the quality and honesty of their musical output. Hopefully this is just the beginning for Lord Vicar, picking up where Reverend Bizarre left off and running with it well beyond the boundaries of the latter.

Cultes des Ghoules - Häxan (2008)

2011-03-25T22:48:00.002-04:00

Conjuration begins
The Head speaks, black candles
Blood of a child and its bones
Necklace and black robes
Sacrifice for the Devil
Corruption and Depravity
This soul is sold… He has won…

Taking the form of ritual set to music, Cultes des Ghoules’ Häxan takes musical inspiration from myriad occult acts from the late 80s and early 90s, crossing the fiery path between the Czech, Greek, Italian, and Polish legends of witchcraft and sorcery and the Satanic cult of Mayhem and the more recent derivations thereof. This is an album that rests comfortably in the traditions set forth by bands such as Samael, Mayhem, Mortuary Drape, Necromantia, Barathrum, Countess, Rotting Christ, Root, Xantotol, Taranis, and Necros Christos, though they mimic nobody, forging a sound of their own which is an extension of what has already come to pass through the dedicated work of the aforementioned.

Having been enlightened by such bands as have already been cited, it is little surprise to find aesthetic similarities between them, in particular the thunderous driving bass of Necromantia and Barathrum and the dark, murky production of their countrymates in the ancient Polish cults such as Taranis. The music of Cultes des Ghoules seeks to envelop the listener into the motions of the ritual, trance inducing passages giving way to the bottom heavy and, dare it be said, catchy grooving riffs which played such a role in the works of so many of the aforementioned acts. There is a loose energy at times here that reminds of A Blaze in the Northern Sky, while at other times Häxan reminds of All the Witches Dance if stripped of its 80s heavy metal sentimentality and its Romantic sense of mysticism and replaced with the truly dark and malevolent. The drumming takes on greater vigour and intensity as it works to flesh out the ideas hinted at by the guitars, relishing in its own power of evoking energy and dictating the direction of each passage, while at the same time respecting its subservient role as the instrument most suited to constructing the certain rhythmic patterns that would be of service to some dark master. It is a ritualized style of drumming capable of ceremoniously conjuring the ancient demons and evil spirits awaiting their turn to serve their lord.

The sights and sounds of mediaeval witchcraft and sacrifice fill the album, engrossing the listener into the aesthetic experience. The album is marked by images of sacrificial daggers and various human remains, primarily skulls, arranged in preparation for a ritual to begin. The intent is for the listener to be prepared to give himself over to the mystique and resonant aestheticism of the recording as the protagonist too gives himself over to witchcraft and the occult. It’s not entirely clear whether the lyrics follow a cohesive narrative or merely touch on similar themes throughout, though the latter seems to be the case. Nevertheless, Häxan is the name of a female witch in a 1920s film of the same name, from which this album is at least partly inspired, though certain hints suggest the lyrics are not necessarily derived from the movie. In “Baptised by Barron,” the protagonist laments that “My blood is getting old / But the spirit still desires the blasphemy.” He is baptized by “The Witch” in a ritual act of infanticide, their blood providing “vigour and communion.” The cries of an infant are heard amidst the ritualized beating of the drums, out of which emerges, broodingly, the realization of the desire in the protagonist to be a part of the witchery as the ceremony for his conversion begins by the “blade of Braquemard / The tool of His glory.”

It is for this purpose that these rituals are performed and to which Häxan is committed, in the praise and worship of Satan. It is the aural dedication of worship to the devil and a commitment to work toward his return, as in “The Covenant and the Sacrifice:”

Bell rings the witching hour
The blood was shed
The child was slain
Through those deeds He rises...

Scholomance, the Devil’s school of black magic, is praised in the song of the same name. It is the place “only born to darkness…when the Devil in Flesh / claims new scholars.” Those who emerge from this hidden school deep within “the heart of mist-covered mountains / by a small lake immeasurably deep” are among the greatest disciples of the Devil and most loyal practitioners of his work. What Cultes des Ghoules has produced here is a manifestation of these occult lessons for which only the select are fit to digest, the initiated already familiar with the work of those practitioners who came before.

It is “The Impure Wedding” that is at the heart of the band’s ambitions, the culmination of the ritual for which the preceding chapters are preparation. This is the ultimate sacrifice, the ritual of transcendence, bestowing upon the victim the capability to see “beyond the veil / The world without end.” The vocal iterations take on a new manifestation, one of impatience and earnest as the knowledge of the end drawing near looms overhead. The music too reflects this anxiety as the tension between trance and energy reaches its climax. The passage beginning about six minutes into the song is particularly striking, perhaps the most poignant moment on the entire album, hearkening toward the legacies of bands such as Necromantia and Barathrum, reveling in a spellbinding melody that freezes the listener in his footsteps. The song continues to go on, trading off musical and lyrical references acting in unison, the music portraying the tone of the lyrical matter as the message corresponds to the energy of the chords being struck.

The sounds of sacrifice overcome, and the last few minutes of the album are dominated by the screams of a dying woman unwillingly contributing to the services of the Devil. The ritual is complete, and the message is uttered until exhaustion as this chapter in the ancient book of Cultes des Ghoules comes to a close. Engrossing is the ceremony contained herein, leaving the dedicated listener drained, yet invigorated by the experience. It is a tonic for the soul attuned to the darker side of life, a cleansing ritual, removing the poisons of the modern world with a sobering lesson into the extremes of the occult. Foolish as Satanism may be, it continues to serve as a lasting metaphor for the recognition of the toxins in our society and a reminder to nourish the self in a world hellbent on ‘spiritual’ starvation of the soul, that thing that makes us who we are.

Christian Mistress - Agony and Opium (20 Buck Spin, 2010)

2011-01-23T15:58:00.002-05:00

Remember when you could go to a party and put on a specific album to find that all the guests coalesce into one small lake of like minded enjoyment? I genuinely feel the band Christian Mistress has this in spades, as their album Agony and Opium (2010, 20 Buck Spin Records) demonstrates a rather focused and streamlined approach to old metal. This however doesn't serve to downplay the musical talent of the group, as the guitarists go through thoughtful leads and solos that bring to mind a combination of Smith/Murray and Friedman/Mustaine. Rallying the fray are the impassioned and serpentine wails of Christine Davis, sounding not too far off from Belgian cult favorites Acid. The question on the mind of most progressive minded metallers is "why care? it's already been done."

A real subject of debate considering the sheer number of retrospective acts emerging in the past 5 years, the question of originality represents the main deal breaker for most listeners. I postulate that many define originality too rigidly. To say Christian Mistress is unoriginal because they base their sound on old metal templates is to say that LHOOQ is unoriginal because it literally started with a copy of the Mona Lisa. The idea of neoclassicism and appropriation has manifested itself in this small (it ain't that big, folks) sector of Rock and Roll music, and bands have thus created works of varying integrity. In this writer's opinion, the cheapest and lowest of the lot, your White Wizzards or Cauldrons attempt to go for a sort of cute and pomp-ridden nostalgia, undermining the work of more thoughtful artists such as Slough Feg, Blackholicus, the newly celebrated Quicksand Dream and the subject of this article. When you stack these releases next to each other, it becomes quite easy to differentiate the cabaret show pretenders and the truly passionate and reverent artists.

I could go into a song by song rundown, but I'll skip all that and say "buy the album." Agony and Opium represents a spectrum of desperate and hungry human emotion, a post industrial defeatist opera of speed and melody. And what music to better represent the wasteland of post industrial society than Heavy Metal? It started with the clanging of the doomed factories on foundation laying vinyl such as Rocka Rolla, and the sad wings still fly, however beaten and bruised. Lyrical mastery in all aspects, each song sings with a palpable regard for punk traveler poetry and some melancholy nights with wine, weed and Leonard Cohen records. The greatest aspect remains that almost everyone in this era of Imperial decline can relate to the experience articulated through each song. The positive aspects of universal appeal have been diluted by the turgid and unimaginative squalor of mainstream media. Christian Mistress totally brings back the vibe of an album you can put on anywhere and most anybody will enjoy it while the recording still oozes musical integrity. I can't remember a single thing like it in the last 10 years.

Against the Grain: John Haughm of Agalloch

2011-01-21T22:42:00.011-05:00

This interview was conducted in late 2009 and published in April 2010 in the first issue of The Heretic's Torch magazine. Due to the issue's limitation, I have decided to share the interview for the perusal of all through this blog. The information is, of course, outdated, in that it is over a year old. Since this interview, Agalloch has released their fourth full-length album, Marrow of the Spirit, through Profound Lore Records. Please keep this in mind while reading and enjoy for what it is.

Agalloch's first output was 1997's From Which of This Oak demo tape. The sound on this cassette is fairly significantly removed from what would be heard two years later on the Pale Folklore album in certain aspects. It is certainly more primitively composed, and more conventional as well. To what can this shifting in sound be attributed? Of course the obvious line between the two recordings can be drawn, but it's also not impossible to mistake them for being recorded by two different bands.

Well while writing the demo stuff, we were primarily influenced by the mid-nineties Black/Death Metal, stuff like Bathory, of course Ulver, and various Darkwave/Doom artists. I think the demo actually has more in common with bands like old Bethlehem and Katatonia, both in production and concept. Once we started putting together Pale Folklore, the aesthetics moved more towards a focus on the folk/gothic influences...bands like Fields of the Nephilim, Death in June, etc. You can really hear this on “Of Stone, Wind, and Pillor" and "Hallways of Enchanted Ebony" which were songs written during this transitional period. From the start, we never wanted to be pigeon-holed into a single style or aesthetic. The only rule was that the music was dark, sincere, and visual. Every album we make is still based on that foundation.

So would you say then that you don't necessarily identify Agalloch as a metal band insofar as that means that you're not bound by genre constrictions? Recordings like The White EP obviously fall outside the realms of metal, but the full-length outputs generally are grounded principally in metal, and I would assume that there are no plans to change that.

That's right and I think we have made this quite clear over the years. At its core, Agalloch is a Dark Metal band. The full lengths will always stem from the Dark Metal foundation and will utilize some of the experimentation we focus on with the minor releases. Being restricted by a single genre is not interesting to us and so we will always continue to experiment and create material that does not fall within such confines, such as what we did with our recent EPs. I guess to put it bluntly, we will do whatever the fuck we want. Isn't that what art is about?

You certainly have not stuck to one genre over the years, let alone one subgenre. It is quite obvious that your compositions are enlightened by various forms of music, such as neofolk and ambient, genres that really seem to add a further layer of depth to the style of metal that Agalloch is known for. Aside from the aforementioned Death in June and Fields of the Nephilim, and the obvious Sol Invictus, what other artists, and genres, have come to shape Agalloch's sound, and in what ways?

I guess it depends on what period. Our last album had shades of Sigur Rós, My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Antarctica, Ennio Morricone, Landberk, Anekdoten, and so on...all of which we were heavily into between 2003 - 2005. I am still a fan of all of these artists and others like them. In fact, the Nordic Prog band THULE changed my life in a similar way that Bergtatt did 15 years ago! I was also watching a lot of depressive Russian films during that period...Tarkovsky, Paradjanov, Sokurov, etc. These influences added to the "colors", mood, and textures of our last album. Our next record will consciously have less musical influences and a more natural, impulsive approach. In some cases I've literally told Don; "look at this painting" or "watch this film" and tell him to write riffs naturally based on his reaction to them. I have been doing the same. The results have been incredible!

Would it be accurate to suggest that taking influences from the artworld outside of music, particularly film, produces unique results within the structure of your music which perhaps would not have otherwise been found? When listening to your music, for example, I sometimes am struck by a somewhat 'cinematic' quality to the way that certain ideas are arranged.

Absolutely. I always try to create a visual soundtrack with the albums. When we record, I speak directly in colors, textures, images, and plots rather than in keys or modes or whatever. I guess it sounds stupid to say to an engineer; "can you make this sound more blue" or "I need a guitar sound that is like broken stones in icy water". I've always approached music this way both in composing it or when listening to other artists.

Although you say that you always approach music in ways perhaps related to something outside of the music, somewhat visually based, you also said that the next record will have "less musical influences." Have you worked enough on the next release to really determine how this will shape the new material? Will it deviate from past works in any substantial way? When do you expect that the next Agalloch album will see the light of day?

The songs are 75-80% complete and I have a very good idea how the next album will flow, feel, and come together as a package. We have been experimenting with some vintage amps, analog synths, and exotic instruments in hopes to find some unique tones as well. Once we are at a phase where the songs are completely written, we are going to take a lot of time in the preproduction phase....demoing, re-demoing, and several rehearsals. I hope we will at least record the drums by the end of this year but the album is going to be a long process. We plan to use three separate studios and a couple engineers which is already a different approach from our other albums.

At the end of the day Agalloch is a glorified hobby. We work on it when we have the inspiration to do so. Time doesn't really matter to us as long as the final result happens naturally and with a focus on quality. So if it takes four years to make a solid record that we can be proud of then so be it. With this album we also don't have a fucking label breathing down our backs constantly wanting updates and other shit so that is an added bonus. Maybe this recording session won't be as much of a nightmare as last time.

What kind of nightmares have you had to deal with throughout the various recording sessions for Agalloch? I suppose this means that The End Records is out of the picture for the next album. Do you have any idea who you would like to work with in the future? Perhaps Profound Lore?

Every possible nightmare scenario you can imagine happened. I think I wanted to quit the band four times during that session. There was even a three day period where we thought we would have to re-record the entire album! I was a stressball for, like, 3 fucking months straight. After it was finally mixed and mastered and over with, the first thing Andreas told me upon listening was that it didn't sound as loud as the Dissection album (Reinkaos)! What the fuck?? He wanted it remastered, which of course we refused to do. Then when the album was released, the booklet was messed up which of course TER blamed me for. Had they opened the PDF file of my proof sheet they would've been able to cross reference with the printing place to make sure everything was right. But they didn't and there was a fuck up which resulted in the pages being assembled out of order. I think the first 2000 copies were faulty. This and the fact that they had become very, very pushy about us touring and "taking the next step" to be more commercial. Look at that label nowadays...a total hipster mess. We want nothing to do with them other than the royalty checks which at least they are still very good about paying us.

For the future...we have talked to a few mid-size indie labels including Profound Lore but nothing is signed as of yet. It is not really a big priority for us at the moment. We plan to fund the next album (and every album thereafter) ourselves and then we will seriously talk to a couple of labels about licensing it. It is very important that we own our work and do things our way at our pace. I think the result will be a much better, stronger band. The pressures from TER nearly caused Agalloch to split up in 2007 so we do not wish to experience that again. We have basically told several big labels to fuck off because their supposed "deal we couldn't refuse" was worse than our deal with TER! Very typical. These big labels don't seem to understand the fact that they are not as important as they were years/decades ago. They are in fact a dying breed.

It certainly seems increasingly more and more well-advised for bands that can afford to do so to fund their own recordings these days; for example, Celtic Frost's funding of their several years in the making return with the Monotheist album. Would you say that the band's music itself has been negatively impacted in any way by label relations? Also, given your past experiences with labels and the pressures that they put on bands to produce, are you considering simply working on case-by-case one album deals with labels in the future? I would imagine that that would eliminate most of the pressure, which I think is especially important for a band such as yours that takes a longer period of time to craft an album than some random retro thrash metal band. Another option would be to release it yourself, but that obviously comes with its own host of issues.

I don't think our music has been negatively affected by TER other than maybe by the association with their latest hipster image. I always thought the label lacked any sort of artistic identity or character that I appreciated with labels like Eibon, Prophecy, Misanthropy, etc. TER to me was a lot of poorly designed generic advertisements, low quality printing (in the early days) and dumb gimmicks. I was never 100% comfortable with the label but, to be fair, they did help put us on the map and opened some interesting doors for us...which I think we also did the same for them as we gained popularity. It was a give and take relationship for sure. Maybe our productions were compromised a bit by their very low budgets which we always went way over anyway. I probably sound more bitter than I am about TER...it was a learning experience and I guess I should value that if nothing else.

I think for the future we are going to take things one album at a time. If the experience with the label is a rewarding one, we will likely continue the relationship. We just refuse to sign, for example, a ridiculous 5+ album contract or anything stupid like that. I can't believe bands still fall for that rubbish!

I would now like you to speak to the following topic; how do you approach songwriting for Agalloch? Is it a labor of meticulous crafting and molding and building up every detail, or is it more of a matter of various elements falling into place? Do you find it necessary to know exactly what you are going to record and how it is going to be recorded in advance of the beginning of recording sessions for an album, or do you at times rely on the actual recording experience to dictate last-minute revisions?

You know, it's interesting how we approached things in such a backwards way in the past. For the first 3 albums, we demoed stuff on a 4 track and used these really terrible demos and references to write the songs. The result always was a mess in the studio but we somehow made it work out through our desire to create something really special. In some ways it was cool to be able to see these crappy demo versions turn into something amazing...but it wasted so much time in the studio. Now, and onward, we are writing and demoing on computers and plan to make the most complete demos possible before going into the studio to record the real thing. For a band in our situation (members living all over the place) it is the best way to communicate and get on the same page with each other's ideas. Last minute revisions will always be there of course but I will never waste time in the studio completely rewriting songs like we did in the past.

As for the songwriting process, it is more or less what you said...there's a lot of meticulous crafting but also a lot of spontaneity as well. A lot of the time I'll go camping or something and sit in the woods with an acoustic guitar and just write tons of riffs. Then I'll come home and transpose the majority of the riffs on the electric guitar, work them into a structure, and then send this structure of riffs to Don for him to work on. On and on, bit by bit. I am someone who really needs to get away from normal life distractions in order to write music. Often times I'll go weeks without even touching a guitar simply due to other shit going on and lack of time and inspiration. I am always thinking about the project, however. Always. I often will be at work and will stop to write down an idea for a layout or a lyric or a title or whatever. I'm always thinking about it even if I'm not physically working behind a guitar or computer screen...it's always on my mind.

It's always interesting to me to read about how and where bands acquire their inspiration for writing, and, quite frankly, the more remote or fantastical the source of inspiration, the more interesting it is. It's not very interesting, for example, to learn that one of your favorite songs was inspired by the bassist seeing a gigantic ant in his basement or something similarly banal. It is of course unsurprising that the woods plays an important part in the formation of your music, and I'm sure that you've spoken about it throughout countless interviews at this point. Have you always had a certain fascination, an admiration with forests and nature? Tell us, if you will, a bit about your relationship with the natural and how it resulted in Agalloch.

Growing up, I had always lived in small mountain towns and such. In fact I didn't actually live in a major metropolis (Seattle) until I was 18. So I have always been around a lot of forested, rather isolated environments and so it is just a seed that was planted early in life, you know? I think as a result I am attracted to "old world" styles...things made out of wood, stone, the earth...with a certain honesty and character...and I wanted to bring those elements alive with Agalloch. Of course we have many more influences than just forests and nature, as I've said already.

You have played live seemingly only sporadically over the years with Agalloch, without ever going on any particularly extended tours that I'm aware of. Is this logistically not an option, or is it more an unwillingness to do so? Would you like to go on an extended tour if granted the opportunity?

The most extensive tour we've done was this year in Europe with Dornenreich. 10 dates in a row. I think that will continue to be the most we'll be able to leave for considering the busy lives of each of Agalloch's members. We would like to do more but I'm not sure if it will ever be possible. It is also much more realistic for us to do two or three 10 date tours in a year than one 30 date tour and I think it is more enjoyable that way anyway. Less chance of burn-out on the road. We have turned down several...SEVERAL offers to go on extensive tours, mind you. If it were possible, we would have traveled the entire world a couple times by now. We do enjoy only picking the very best options out of the several offers we get. That tour with Dornenreich was an absolutely incredible experience for us.

You were, up until recent years, the man behind the drums for Agalloch's recordings. Why did you decide to enlist the services of a drummer at that time?

I needed less responsibilities in the band! Up until Ashes Against the Grain, I played guitars, drums, vocals, 90% of the songwriting, all of the lyrics, the layouts, the photography, the press stuff....!!! It came to a point where I no longer had time for all of these responsibilities so I spread them out. We got a drummer. We met and enlisted a brilliant photographer. The songwriting is now more spread out within the band...so now I can just concentrate on my guitar parts, my vocals and lyrics, and the design/art direction of our releases. It's much better this way because I think more people can bring ideas and visions to the table that I simply wouldn't have on my own, especially with so much else on my mind.

You first brought in Chris Greene to play drums, who performed on Ashes Against the Grain. Now the drummer is Aesop Dekker, notably from Ludicra. Why did things not work out with Chris? How did Dekker come into the picture, and how is he working out in the band? Do you feel that his drumming style at all influences how you choose to write the new material?

When we decided to play live back in 2002, we didn't know anyone who played drums and could get along with a band like Agalloch. We have always been outsiders in the local scene, especially back then when most people didn't even know we were a local band! The music scene here consisted of mainly crusty punk bands, brutal death/gore metal, war metal, and indie rock. Agalloch was the only atmospheric dark metal band in the Portland area at the time. So every band we knew had a constant revolving door of musicians who were too flakey or too uptight to deal with. Long story short, we found Chris who worked well for awhile. His style suited the more midpaced material, which we focused on for live shows at the time. He also worked out pretty well for the Ashes Against the Grain album and its more stripped down approach. But as time went on, we felt that we were developing more and more as a live band but he wasn't as a drummer. It came to a head on that terrible European tour we did in 2006 and shortly afterwards we parted ways with him. He frankly wasn't surprised by our decision.

Aesop from Ludicra had been a friend of ours since 2003 and was quite interested in the vacant drummer position. So we organized a rehearsal with him and it was brilliant. He played most of my drum parts (I recorded on the first two albums) perfectly and he also added a personal touch to them as well. It was an easy choice.

A new Agalloch live DVD was released back in October called The Silence of Forgotten Landscapes. From what I've read, this was a rather last minute thing that was sprung onto the band by the gig promoter and the record label. Can you talk about the circumstances surrounding the filming of this DVD?

Yeah it was a really hectic situation for many reasons, some of which we did not foresee. Firstly, I got sick on the flight to Europe. I had left a week early to see some friends in Germany and to borrow some equipment for the shows. During that week my illness got worse and worse. I dealt with it ok at the Ragnarök fest, which was another show riddled with issues. But between Germany and Belgium I had developed "walking pneumonia". So I had to play a show, a pro-filmed one, while in a state that felt like a bad hangover complete with hallucinations and sing with a throat that felt like it was on fire. We thought about canceling but instead I decided to take it like a man and do it. It's kind of funny looking at the footage because I was totally trying to give the impression that nothing was wrong. Between singing lines I would hide my coughing and agony behind my hair, heh. Then on top of that, we had technical issues with one of the amps and the sound on stage was really, really messy. It is really unfortunate that this was the DVD show because now it just reminds me of those conditions.

I will say that after a few days in Belgium, I went back to Germany and visited the Externsteine. My friends and I stayed there late into the night and built a fire with traveling flutists and percussionists who we met that day. The energy in the stones of the Externsteine is said to have healing properties so I laid down in the sepulchre, in total darkness, while the sounds of flutes and drums resonated through the stones and into my body. I spent about 30 minutes in the sepulchre...it was one of the most amazing spiritual experiences I have ever had. The following day, my horrible illness was gone.

Ultimately, would you say that you're content with this as an Agalloch product, even given the behind the scenes issues surrounding it?

I think we took a bad situation and made something worthwhile out of it. I think the monochrome, "1930's silent film" aesthetic worked really well. Pretty much every problem you can imagine occurred even after the show. The color footage was completely unusable, the transfers were given to us in a format that wouldn't work with our editor's program, resulting in massive syncing problems - some of which you can see on the DVD. Of course there were a couple small performance mistakes that had to be fixed and some horrible bleed-through on the vocal mic that had to be corrected. Despite all of this, however, we aimed to maintain as much of an untouched live recording that we could. I don't believe in going into the studio and re-recording everything like some bands do. What you hear on the DVD is 95% true to the performance that night. We even re-amped the guitars with the same channel sounds from our floor effects units. We wanted the recording to sound good - but still be a real live recording. That was very important to us.

I think if we ever do something like this again, we will organize everything ourselves. We'll hire a crew that we know and trust and film it either at a local venue or in a city within driving distance so we can use our own backline gear and all of our stage stuff that we couldn't easily bring on a plane to Europe (large tree stumps, deer skulls, etc). We didn't even get the fog machines that we requested for the Belgium show. Ridiculous!

Do you have any interest in the idea of "the metal scene," so to speak? I know that you say that Agalloch is largely an outsider in the local scene, but internationally, I like to evaluate the state of metal as an artform based on the quality of the output of visionary artists and of innovation and creativity in advancing the musical landscape of the metal genre. Do you take any particular interest in the broader spectrum of what metal bands of today have to offer and its respective health? If so, would you care to share any observations you may have on the matter? I am mostly interested in whether or not you find yourself being influenced by any contemporary artists in your songwriting.

Hmmm...well yeah I can certainly say that the "scene" needs an injection of artistic minded groups for sure. It seems to go through a period of stagnation until a few really visionary artists pop into the fray and turn it around for a few years. This happened with the second wave of black metal, and first wave of suicidal dark metal in the 90s. Then again with the uprising of these so-called post metal and horrible jolly folk metal trends that happened in this decade. We try to follow our own path no matter what is going on in the scene. Sometimes our path unintentionally crosses with others and we will get sucked in with "post metal" or "folk metal" or whatever which can be annoying for us.

There are a few bands in the current waves that interest me like Fauna, Velnias, Gris, Lifelover, Alcest, Peste Noire, Aluk Todolo, Kroda, Fen, Altar Of Plagues, Vindensång, Paysage d'Hiver, Wedard, Cold World, Krallice...to name a few. The local "Cascadian" scene already has the potential to be really great. I really enjoy bands with a certain special charisma that appeals to me. This is why I am such a huge fan of Master's Hammer, (early) Bethlehem, Vlad Tepes, In The Woods, Bathory, and Ulver....bands that brought something more interesting to the table with their sound, image, and attitude. As for being influenced by contemporaries...yes I suppose there is a small degree of influence that is unavoidable, however, the biggest mistake an artist can make is to be led by their contemporaries. We must continue our own path no matter what is going on around us.

How do you know when to call it a day, musically speaking, or do you have any idea? Or is there really any need to foresee an end? You say that you view Agalloch as essentially a glorified hobby, so is this project something that you intend to have with you with an idea of no end in sight, or do you have some idea that you will eventually like to simply move on to something else, whether it is musically or not? And on that note, have you ever considered expanding your artistic portfolio beyond the musical and the other artforms that directly tie in to your musical work? For example, have you ever considered publishing a book of photography, or a writing of some kind?

The time to call it a day is when you have nothing more left to offer. Honestly, after we released The White EP I had serious doubts that the band would exist for much longer. I was exhausted of ideas and quite content with our accomplishments. That is a terminal mixture. But as always, new ideas started to take root and so we will continue for another album or two at least. Now that we are independent from a label's expectations, the band is a lot more enjoyable and the inspiration continues to flow (albeit at a snail's pace).

In the end, I think I will always do something with music, whether playing in a band and releasing albums or just making music for myself. I cannot foresee a total nadir of that expression for me personally. I would really like to try my hand at film making and perhaps some other more "old world" crafts like woodworking, etching, cobb architecture, and continuing my wine craft.

Is there anything that has not been addressed in this interview that you would like to discuss? Perhaps something interesting or noteworthy surrounding the band or yourself that doesn't get brought up in interviews?

Eh...I can't think of anything. You would be surprised by the wide array of oddities we have been asked in interviews. I will say that I am EXTREMELY excited about the new Master's Hammer album. I am equally NOT excited about almost every other band reformations/reunions out there. That seems to be the latest trend...crappy thrash bands from 20 years ago coming back to life to record another piece of unnecessary drivel for stupid teenagers who didn't get to experience the drivel the first time. Yay...way to push the boundaries of metal. At least in the case of Master's Hammer, they were already a very interesting band when they split so I have no doubt that those eccentric Czechs will create something unique and special once again.

Phlegethon - "Drifting in the Crypt" (Fin)

2010-08-20T09:33:00.000-04:00

As I’ve probably mentioned on here before, the Finnish death metal scene from the early 90s is one of my favorite areas in metal. Some of the bands that came from that era are unparalleled in quality and heaviness. Since a lot of the bands from that scene were relatively obscure and short-lived, often releasing only a few demos or a 7”, it’s nice to have labels like Xtreem around who make some of the rarer recordings available again. The quality of some of their earlier CDs reissues were a bit shoddy, but that’s a small complaint in the face of such monstrous music. In the past, the label has done some great Finnish reissues for the bigger bands like Demigod, Disgrace, Demilich, and Funebre, and 2010 sees the addition of Phlegethon’s discography to their resume.

Phlegethon were a bit of an oddball band within the Finnish scene. The Finnish sound is fairly unique and easy to recognize; slow, brooding, downtuned death metal. Phlegethon, on the other hand, started out with a more thrash derived sound that in comparison to their peers, was a lot less aesthetically heavy. Their sound on the first two demos was characterized by oddly strung together thrash sounding riffs with longer phrasing, to the point where they almost feel like the musical equivalent of a run-on sentence. In a way, they remind me of Treblinka and their relationship with the rest of the Swedish scene.

This two CD compilation contains the band’s entire recorded output: two demos (“Visio Dei Beatifica”, 1989, “Neutral Forest”, 1990), the “Fresco Lungs” EP (1991), bonus tracks from the “Fresco Lungs” CD reissue (1992), a 1995 promo, and three demos from recent years (2006, 2007 and 2008). The band varies stylistically from recording to recording, and for some reason, the CD does not present the tracks in chronological order. This is a minor annoyance, as logically the “Fresco Lungs” CD would be on the first CD along with the demos, but instead is the leadoff recording on the second disc. Another complaint I have is the overuse of the Papyrus font, which is something that almost always looks stupid. At least the text in the booklet is readable, which contains some good interviews and write-ups of the band.

The first two demos are rather similar stylistically; they are in the aforementioned strange thrashy run-on death metal style. The guitar tone is a bit thin on these demos, but works well to the band’s sound and the vocals are raspier and higher pitched than what was standard in the Finnish scene. This is probably the most interesting material on this compilation and the most “cult” sounding. From the first demo, the band approached death metal from a far less primitive angle than many of their contemporaries, and a good number of these tracks run around seven or eight minutes long. While some of the riffs are non-conventional, the band has a good sense of flow, and the longer songs are not filled with sections that feel out of place or forced.

In contrast with the thinner sound on the demos, “Fresco Lungs” sounds a lot more “Finnish”. The guitars are a lot heavier and the vocals are much deeper and growled. Two of the tracks on here, "Encapsulation of the Ark of the Covenant", "Ornaments", are re-recordings of material from the first two demos. The band has an excellent sound here, and while they sound a lot more produced and tighter, the added heaviness is a nice touch. It would have been interesting to hear more material from the demos played in this fashion. Keys are used sparingly in certain places, and never feel overpowering. The 1992 tracks from the “Fresco Lungs” CD reissue are sort of in the same vein, but with mixed results. “Stone Me” sounds fairly similar to “Fresco Lung”’s four tracks, but “Without Tea Waters” shows the band flirting with hard techno, which sounds really goofy and falls flat on its face. The liner notes make mention that the recording of “Fresco Lungs” was a difficult process for the band, and the band ended up splitting around this time.

In 1995, the band’s drummer, Lasse Pyykkö, put together a couple death and roll tracks with a different lineup. Very few copies of this recording were made, and it bears little resemblance to the previous Phlegethon material. I find death and roll to be a very tedious and cheesy genre, and these tracks are no different. While these may appeal to people who somehow enjoy Carcass’ “Swansong” or Entombed’s “Wolverine Blues”, I find the temptation to skip over them too great to resist.

After almost a decade break, the band reformed in the mid 2000s with another lineup and a different sound. This new incarnation of the band released the "Totems Within" demo in 2006. The sound on here is more akin to the type of thrash that some of the older German bands were playing at the time. The melodies and especially the vocals remind me a bit of Kreator’s “Violent Revolution” if it were a bit less produced. Personally, I didn’t care for that record, and I think that this demo was a bit of a misstep for the band. The vocals are especially weak and the songs never really get going in the way that they should. Four tracks averaging at four minutes a piece takes up a little too much space on the CD, and I tend to skip over these as well.

Fortunately, the band’s quality increases a great deal with their next two demos. These recordings are doomier in tone than the first two demos, less experimental than the “Fresco Lungs” EP, and show the band making a return to playing real death metal again. The guitar tone here is a lot heavier than earlier material, and sounds quite modern without feeling overproduced and dry. Stylistically the band plays in an intricate doom-death vein, which bears more similarities to what Lasse Pyykkö is doing with Hooded Menace than anything Phlegethon has done prior.

There is certainly a lot of great material to be found here, and for the price that most retailers have this for ($15 or so), it’s definitely a steal. My gripes with Xtreem’s treatment of this music are minor, and aside from a couple of clunky tracks, the music is mostly very solid. While I wouldn’t rank the band as high as Demigod or Demilich, Phlegethon had a unique sound and at their best, they played some great music. Unlike many of the early 90s Finnish death metal bands, Phlegethon has proven they are still capable of playing interesting death metal, and I’m looking forward to their future releases. Anyone interested in classic Finnish death metal will find this reissue to be mandatory, and more casual death metal listeners should find quite a bit to enjoy here as well.

Burzum - "Belus" (Nor)

2010-08-09T20:22:00.001-04:00

For better or worse, the early 90s Norwegian black metal scene came to be the defining force in the second wave of black metal. A lot of arguments can be made for either. Falling into the "better" category is the vast amount of quality produced by the country from 1989 to 1994. Boasting an incredibly high signal to noise ratio that remains unparalleled to the day, the Norwegian scene was operating between a lower bound of "very good" and an upper bound of "genre defining masterpiece". The music produced during this time was instrumental in pushing the genre away from a more traditional rockish riff-based approach and more towards an atmospheric, ambient construction. In contrast, falling into the "worse" camp, the scene shortly fizzed out, became a parody of itself and inspired countless lesser talented bands who would flood the market with lukewarm rehashes. In direct contrast to Norway's response against “trendy” death metal (a bit silly to state, considering most of the Norwegian bands started out as death metal and all conviniently jumped ship at the same time, nevermind all the killer death metal that was being produced in Sweden or Finland, and the surprising lack of killer death metal being produced in Norway), the Norsk black metal sound soon became a trend itself. While bands like Darkthrone developed a sense of humor and grew the ability to laugh at themselves though a series of good and highly enjoyable later albums, Emperor just turned into a joke. The legion of awful synth black metal bands that followed “In the Nightside Eclipse” is amongst the worst music recorded by anyone at any given time, and its truly astounding how much of it there is. Its always unfair to harshly judge a scene based on the merits of the low quality imitators rather than the original classics, but given the gap in quality between the original bands and the clones, its a big turnoff for me to hear a Norse-inspired sound in a present day band.

Burzum is one of the most oft imitated bands to emerge from Norway's black metal scene, and listening to the music, its incredibly easy to see why. Burzum's sound was extremely new and unique, and while initially inspired by the Thorns demos, quickly progressed to a sound on "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" and "Filosofem" that embodied the Norwegian shift away from the more traditional heavy metal based sound of black metal's first wave. More closely resembling ambient music in structure than heavy metal, Burzum's music is dark, dischordant, tense and brooding. As with ambient music, the songwriting focus is placed almost entirely on the atmosphere; there is barely any energy in the songs, and the song structures are extremely repetitive and long. Working within this kind of framework requires a great deal of talent, and Varg's imitators often possess a fraction of his compositional skills. Most of the Burzum inspired bands I've heard have been tedious and boring, which is something that Burzum was never guilty of ("Daudi Baldrs" doesn't count as that is more in the 'unintentionally hilarious' category). I find this to be a shame, as I consider "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" and "Filosofem" to be pinnacle of black metal as a whole; very dark and textured music that does not have an equal, past or present.

"Belus" is Varg's first metal album in almost 15 years. "Filosofem" was probably the last of the truly great Norwegian black metal albums to emerge from the 90s explosion, and Varg's incarceration coincided with the time when the scene imploded upon itself. "Daudi Baldrs" was an embarassment, and while I liked "Hlidskjalf" a great deal, it had nothing to do with what was going on in the black metal scene at the time. Given the lapse of time between that (1999) and 2010, combined with the high opinion I have of Burzum's early work, I was a bit skeptical when I heard that he was returning to writing metal music. A lot of the older greats are never able to recapture the magic of their earlier albums in the later stages of their careers, but upon actually hearing the album in its entirety, I couldn't be more pleased at how much it exceeded my expectations.

Stylistically the album very much plays out as the logical successor to "Filosofem". The layered approach to the guitar playing, its tone and the droning role in the music bear a great deal of resemblance to that album; the vocals are also delivered in a distorted rasp similar in “Filosofem”'s tone. A far cry away from the manic shrieks on the first three albums, these vocals are less harsh but work extremely well within the context of this music. The bass is quite prominent in the mix, and works extremely well in contrast to fill out the trebly guitars. Largely used for rhythmic punctuation, the bass was never fully utilized on earlier Burzum records, and its presence here adds a lot to the music.

Synths are used extremely tastefully and subtlely on this album. At no point are they overbearing or appear at inopportune places within the music, nor do they go off in their own direction for half of the album's running length. For the most part, the music is more dominated and driven by the guitars, which guide the listener through one of the best black metal albums from the last 10 years.

I don't know if I like "Belus" more than "Filosofem" or not, as "Filosofem" has the advantage of having 14 years to sink in. "Filosofem" was one of the first 'real' black metal albums I bought, and I've listened to it countless times since. However, after listening to "Belus" almost non-stop for a few weeks after its release, I can't identify a single weak point on the album. Aside from the brief 30 second intro of a hammer majestically hitting an anvil (which sounds so weak that I thought it was footsteps until Dodens Grav told me otherwise), the album is extremely strong throughout its duration. "Sverddans" is a ripping throwback to the first Burzum album that seems to come out of nowhere, and the rest of the album surrounding this track is made up of extremely well constructed songs which rank amongst Burzum's finest. The intro is totally inconsequential, and while it would have been best to have been left off entirely, it doesn't take much effort to move the needle a few millimeters to the right.

Probably the most poignant thing about this album's release is how much it illustrates the gap between Burzum's songwriting and the songwriting of Burzum influenced bands. Before Varg went to prison, the wave of totally generic, Norse inspired black metal was just in its infacy stages. Its fairly safe to say that the black metal scene has been largely stagnant since the Norwegian scene fell apart, and aside from the Canadian war metal scene and random acts here and there, I haven't been impressed by too many of the genre's recent entries. By 2010, thousands of generic Burzum influenced albums have come out, and “Belus” still manages to sound fresh and new in a style that has been largely stale for about a decade. "Belus" is everything that I had thought impossible - a logical followup to "Filosofem" that manages to progress musically without sacrificing quality. When receiving the album I was hoping for simply "just good", and I'm glad I got something that sits amongst the best. While I'm not confident the rest of the old Norwegian black metal scene will follow suit and release excellent albums, it wouldn't be realistic to expect anything anywhere near that. As long as Burzum can continue producing music half this good, I won't really mind too much.

NME - "Unholy Death" (USA)

2010-08-09T17:36:00.003-04:00

A big allure for me towards the first wave of death and black metal bands is their tendency to produce raw and simplistic music. Few things can make a death metal record more tedious than overproduction and forced technicality. Venom’s formula of punk-inspired savagery is what opened the flood gates for death and black metal, and their primitive sound is largely what defined the genre. In the years following the release of “Welcome to Hell”, I would be hard pressed to find a band that popped up in the wave of bands that popped up in Venom’s wake that I didn’t like. Naturally some bands such as Bathory and Hellhammer received worldwide attention, but it’s interesting to note that arguably the most Venom-inspired band of them all, NME, have little more than a cult following.

“Unholy Death” is one of the few records that are able to surpass its mentor. I absolutely love Venom; “Welcome to Hell” and “Black Metal” are two of the most praised albums in the genre for a reason. They are absolute monsters in every sense of the word and total classics from start to finish. However, NME crush them in almost every single way.

Nearly completely derived from Venom, “Unholy Death” is an extremely simplistic, straightforward, and brutal recording. Rarely exceeding two or three riffs per song, NME play an incredibly simple and ugly bastardization of early Venom. No attempt is made at any sort of guitar acrobatics, and most of the song structures are as basic as they come. However, NME doesn’t need to expand their musical boundaries any further than this, as they have all the right ingredients needed to make a great album - a filthy guitar tone, disgusting vocals, excellent driving riffs and an incredibly evil atmosphere.

In spite of their simplicity, all of the riffs are incredibly crushing. Much like Slaughter, the band takes an extremely punkish approach to their music, and they deliver the goods without any extraneous fluff. This punkish approach also carries over to the collage-style artwork on the record's front and back covers. The vocals are very sloppily delivered, a hoarse sort of howl that sounds almost drunken in its phrasing, and the bass provides a massive steamroller noise floor. Extremely fuzzed out and thick, the bass complements the guitar, often playing the same riff, and gives the band a massive wall of sound. A majority of the band’s material is played at a grinding mid-tempo pace. When the band tries to play faster, they nearly fall apart, but are able to maintain an overwhelming energy which holds the songs together, and when the band tries to play slow, particularly on “Warrior” (dedicated to Mel Gibson), they create an intensively destructive, dark and evil sound.

I’ve seen this band written off as clones before, and I wouldn’t really say that is an accurate tag to apply. NME are certainly very heavily Venom inspired, but cut out their own sound within “Unholy Death”’s grooves. Besides, I can certainly think of far worse tags to apply to a band than Venom clones. I’m not sure if this accusation is why the band doesn’t really seem to have the following they should, or if it was due to their relatively isolated location for extreme metal. The Pacific Northwest doesn’t really seem to be a hotspot for activity in the death metal scenes by 1986, and NME’s ugly brand of death metal was far more raw and primitive than most.

The bizarre non-musical events surrounding the band are almost as interesting as their music. Guitarist Kurt Struebing went to prison for stabbing his mother to death while on DXM after trying to examine her to see if she was a robot. He later killed himself in 2005 by trying to drive his car over a raised drawbridge and it is unsure if this was an intentional suicide or if he was just being impatient in traffic. These events indicate that the band has always been a little ‘off’, and this sort of outsider quality permeates into the music. “Unholy Death” is an extremely vicious recording, and despite its structural similarities to Venom, and stands out on its own as far as its brooding atmosphere and tone, surpassing many of their contemporaries.

Obtaining a copy of this album can be difficult and confusing, particularly the "right" copy. Reissued in 1995 on CD by Moribund Records, the mix on here is vastly inferior to the original LP. A lot of the massive bass tone is reduced, and the CD version sounds much cleaner than the LP. However, the “Machine of War” demo is included as bonus tracks, and is worth picking up for this reason alone. The band also re-recorded several of the tracks on the “Machine of War” CD, and released a second full length in 2002. The original LP version of “Unholy Death” remains their masterpiece, and often ranges in price for $40 - $75, which is well worth it. One of death metal’s first masterpieces of raw primitivism, “Unholy Death” is an absolute essential and shouldn’t be missed by anyone craving a fierce slab of evil metal.

Captain Beyond - "Captain Beyond" (US/UK)

2010-08-09T16:55:00.001-04:00

Grey areas in music can often make it a nightmare for classification purposes. Being a librarian, I like things that fall neatly into one category. However, being a metal fan, this often doesn’t happen. In the 1980s, metal often flirted with hard rock, AOR, and hardcore, producing a wealth of albums that fall under the umbrella of more than one genre. Perhaps the grey area that causes the most confusion and frustration for me is the one which surrounds the genre’s beginning. Records from the early 70s that would now be clearly labeled as “hard rock” (essentially anything heavier than Grand Funk or so) were often labeled as heavy metal by contemporary journalists. After all, the first printed usage of the phrase “heavy metal” was in a Sir Lord Baltimore review. When dealing with more mainstream albums such as Rush or Blue Cheer, it can be easy to chalk up said descriptions as a sign of the times. After all, Black Sabbath’s debut is by far the heaviest thing from that era, and looking back, it would be unfair to expect any band to perform at that level of quality or heaviness. However, when dealing with contemporary journalism, the late 60s and early 70s is when a lot of bands started to play heavier, but not necessarily “metal”. While it’s understandable that a lot of early 70s hard rock was labeled as “metal” (after all, it seems implausible now to think that a band as popular as Black Sabbath could be in a genre with themselves for a couple of years), it can also be very frustrating as a listener. When trying to delve into the more obscure bands, these incorrect genre descriptors are often applied to certain records by more enthusiastic fans who over over-exaggerate the heaviness or quality of a record simply because of its obscurity.

Captain Beyond was one of the first records with which I experienced this phenomenon. First described to me as a precursor to Judas Priest and Mercyful Fate, the picture in my mind I had of this album was a raw, fuzzed out masterpiece which would be a rival to Black Sabbath at their heaviest. Needless to say, when I first heard the album I was slightly disappointed within the first couple of seconds. Fortunately the band’s songs are instantly likeable and approachable, so this disappointment wore off as quickly s it came.

Formed as a sort of supergroup between Deep Purple’s original singer and two of Iron Butterfly’s members, Captain Beyond’s debut is one of the best records from the era. In addition to surpassing both Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple (both Mark I and Mark II) in heaviness, Captain Beyond also surpasses both bands in the songwriting department. Iron Butterfly were a good band, and while I think that Mark I Deep Purple is absolutely fantastic, especially “Book of the Taliesyn” and the self titled, but Captain Beyond have expanded and improved on the best points of both bands. Rod Evans’ vocals are extremely strong here; very forceful and powerful without sacrificing melody, and the riffing and soloing is extremely concise without any of the meandering which brought down Iron Butterfly’s output.

It’s easy to see why this record would have been considered heavy metal upon its release, but I have a hard time applying that label to it in 2010. Aside from the bridge riff in “Dancing Madly Backwards” and the main riff/licks in “Raging River of Fear”, there isn’t much of the dark and sinister feeling present in Black Sabbath’s formative albums on here. On the whole the album has a fairly bright tone, and while the guitar tone is quite heavy for 1972, the riffs themselves are largely hard rock in nature. Surely a grey area, and might be considered splitting hairs, but in my view, the presence of “evil” in the music is what differentiates a metal recording from a non-metal recording, and I find making this distinction to be useful when describing formative and influential acts at the genre’s beginning.

What this release lacks in “metalness”, it certainly makes up for in quality songwriting. The vocals are fantastic, certainly Evans’ best performance, and the riffs are impossibly catchy. The band effortlessly segues between heavier passages and lighter, cleaner sections, which on the whole provide nice dynamics on the album. Aside from a couple dated hippie-ish parts (I have hard time believing that the declaration of “Listen: jump on a moonbeam and ride” could have been taken as anything other than silly even upon its release), the band is extremely adept at creating intricate and varied music which doesn’t lose sight of itself. Many of the songs are delivered in suites, which are really annoying when ported to CD, as the CD has 13 tracks instead of the logical 5 tracks the album should have. Three of these suites approach ten minutes in length, but the album never feels like it is dragging or meandering. The band has a great command of their craft and not only know when to change up the music, but also are able to successfully work in variations of previous musical themes in a way that doesn’t seem excessive or wanky.

For the genre, heavy 70s, downer rock, proto-metal, whatever you want to call it, I’d be hard pressed to name a better album than this one. It doesn’t sound like Black Sabbath, nor is it anywhere near as heavy, but don’t let that cause you to pass this one up. The songwriting is absolutely top notch, and even in the few passages that don’t work as well, the band delivers with a lot more force, power and heaviness than most of their contemporaries; this is certainly not an airy prog album that gets constantly misclassified. It feels a lot more sincere than modern artists trying to recreate this sound retroactively, as this kind of spirit seems almost impossible to accurately replicate. Tracking this one down shouldn’t be too much trouble and even the original 3-D cover doesn’t particularly go for very much money. The band’s later works aren’t nearly as impressive in my opinion, but there is no doubt that they struck gold with this one. While this record might not sit in the “metal” section of my record shelf, but there is no doubt in my mind that it is more than capable of competing with the best that do.

DDT - "Dethroned Death/Fineness of Brutality" (Pol)

2010-08-09T15:54:00.004-04:00

When I first started to look into Polish death metal, DDT were one of the bands that had immediately stuck out as being one of the best bands. Unlike many of their peers, the band played in a slower, more doom/death based style, rather than a lot of the faster Slayerish type death/thrash that Vader had made popular. Redrum666 records, also based out of Poland, recently reissued DDT’s two demos on CD, which are both fantastic recordings that have been criminally overlooked. A lot of these demo only bands get buried by their contemporaries and remain in the depths of obscurity, so naturally I was quite excited to hear that Redrum had stepped up to the plate and put this out.

The CD presentation itself is decent, although a bit minimalistic. Graphics are a bit pixellated and the liner notes could have been more expansive. Scans from some zines that DDT appeared in would have been nice to see, even if no English translation was provided. Some light remastering could have helped out too, as tape hiss is clearly present in the first demo, “Dethroned Death”. But ultimately, Redrum666 appears to be just starting out, and when it comes to resurfacing classics like this, getting the music out there is the most important part. Minor complaints out of the way, I’m extremely grateful for the label taking a chance on this stuff. Cult Polish demos don’t really seem to get much recognition beyond the Polish border, and it’s great to see someone with similar tastes making demos like this available again. The black and white demo artwork is absolutely killer, the music effectively conveys an eerie and ugly vibe and essentially encompasses everything I look for in these kind of recordings.

As noted before, DDT plays in a murky doom/death style. “Dethroned Death”, their first demo, was released in 1991. Comparisons to Autopsy wouldn’t be far off; the band plays a real nasty, slower brand of death metal that has a similar rhythm to what Autopsy were doing on “Mental Funeral” and a couple of the tracks on “Severed Survival”. However, Autopsy are excellent and precise songwriters, whereas DDT’s sense of flow on this recording is a lot more reckless and brash, and riffs jarringly slam together as the music lurches from one nasty doomy section to another. The bass is quite prominent in the mix which further pushes the music along, and the vocals are in a lower growl, sounding just as sloppy as the music below them. Guitar solos and leads are often trilled, and their accompaniment adds a strange atmosphere to the music.

Its barbarism, brutality and simplicity makes the “Dethroned Death” demo is my favorite out of the two recordings, but the “Fineness of Brutality” demo is also an excellent recording. Following in 1992, “Fineness of Brutality” shows a great maturation in songwriting, musical ability, and control over atmosphere. Despite the fact that only one year has passed since the release of “Dethroned Death”, the band no longer has a sloppy and youthful air to their music. Instead, the songs are much more refined; riffs are much more drawn out, transitional elements are more carefully integrated into the song structures, and the band is able to capture a very strange, ethereal atmosphere. Opening and closing with a wash of reverbed guitars, the demo has a very other-worldly sound to it. Averaging around seven minutes long, the three original songs presented on this recording are far doomier in tone than the first demo, and while the band incorporates some of the same elements (trilled guitar leads, echoey vocals), on the whole the band presents themselves as being much more composed. The Celtic Frost cover (“Dethroned Emperor”) is nice, but is perhaps a little extraneous. The track from the “Dying Gods” promo is also included on this CD reissue, and bears more similarities to the second demo than the first.

Poland’s scene tends to be underrated as a whole, but hopefully reissues like this will begin to change that. “Dethroned Death” should appeal to most fans of ugly, raw death metal, and “Fineness of Brutality” should no doubt resonate more with those who gravitate towards the early 90s doom/death scene. It’s a shame that this CD presentation wasn’t more expansive, but the music contained within is fantastic and more than affordable directly from the label. Not only are they one of Poland’s best, but it’s safe to say that DDT are of the same level of quality as their slow playing contemporaries; massive and mandatory.

While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose (2009)

2010-05-09T19:31:00.004-04:00

Rejuvenated by an influx of new membership, Virginia’s While Heaven Wept has finally created a masterpiece after nearly two decades of grandiose attempts at melancholy, epic metal of the sometimes doom/sometimes power ilk. I found their previous two full lengths quite frustrating, both flawed for extremely different reasons. The “Sorrow of the Angels” release, clearly the superior of the two, suffered from a lack of consistency between its passages. The vocal performance may have been heartfelt, but far too overbearing. “Of Empires Forlorn” boasted more compact songwriting and a more controlled, well-rounded vocal performance. However, the songs themselves tended to lack any semblance of heavy riffing, and the drummer turned in a completely lethargic performance. Their cover of “Epistle No. 81” by the mighty Candlemass illustrates the problem of performance, while dull numbers like “Voice in the Wind” and “The Drowning Years” mismatch depressive lyrics with an overpowering mass of saccharine keyboards. In a way, the ultra prevalence of keyboards on “Of Empires...” were about as ham handed as the vocal performance on “Sorrow of the Angels.”

However, main man Tom Phillips decided to get his shit together in a massive way. Greeted with riff that succeeds in marrying thrash and melodic rock with a solid double bass rumble, any listener familiar with their previous work knows immediately that things have changed. A short acoustic passage with tasteful (thank you!) backing keys transitions into a dirge of epic riffs and a new voice. Newcomer Rain Irving, easily the best thing to happen to While Heaven Wept, turns in a performance that matches inspiration with intentional melancholia. His voice sounds a lot like Phillips himself, but with more range and control, something the previous songs could thrive on. “To Wander the Void,” an abject homage to the legendary early work of Fates Warning easily stands out as the best track on the album. “Living Sepulchre” flies out the door with a thrash beat and a melodic riff, leading into a volcanic crescendo between sensibly layered vocals and impressive stop-start drumming. A testament to the originality the band always possessed, this track represents a full realization of such potential.

Really, getting such a full ensemble was the ticket for this group to become the next premier melodic Metal act. “Vessel” channels some of the more AOR moments found on “Of Empires…” but does not overstay its welcome; the variety present on the rest of the album helps the song stand out with its sweet melodic rock oriented chorus (whereas on the previous effort, numbers like this would grind back to back). The titular, instrumental outro lingers a few minutes too far, which seems not so agreeable with the short running time. However, considering the full scale upgrade in both the performance and songwriting it can be easily forgiven. This one is worth getting for either fans of modern or old metal, which makes “Vast Oceans Lachrymose” a triumph on its own.

Hooded Menace - "Never Cross the Dead" (Fin)

2010-05-05T12:28:00.003-04:00

Doom/death can be one of life’s greatest pleasures. When done right, the music hits like none other. Slow, brooding and massive sounds, preferably accompanied by a set of monster riffs, make up the perfect formula for a completely crushing album. When done wrong, the listener is subjected to trainwreck ideas like “beauty and the beast” female/death vocal trade-offs, excessive keys, or endless droning. Fortunately, in 2010, the dreaded gothic doom trends have subsided quite a bit, and real doom/death seems to be coming back, and is certainly most welcomed by my speakers.

Hooded Menace are one of the more interesting projects to surface in recent years. The brainchild of veteran death metal musician Lasse Pyykkö (most notably of Phlegethon, but also involved with many other bands), the band was started off as a Candlemass cover band with death metal vocals. The band apparently had so much fun playing in this style that they decided to write their own songs in that vein, and released their first full length, “Fulfill the Curse” on Razorback records in 2008. “Fulfill the Curse” was a great album, and had all the right elements necessary for a great doom record. An absolutely massive guitar sound, catchy riffs, and good sense of melancholic melody without going overboard into mopey territory, all blended together perfectly to a modern classic of the genre. Perhaps almost as important for me, the band’s artwork, name and lyrical themes revolve around the Tombs of the Blind Dead films, four great Spanish horror movies that, at least the first two, have been long time favorites of mine.

“Never Cross the Dead” continues almost exactly where “Fulfill the Curse” left off. Despite the fact that the new album was released by Profound Lore Records, Billy from Razorback still has a sizeable hand in the band, and wrote a fair amount of the horror-themed lyrics. The presentation of the CD is in digipack format, which along with the picture disc, is probably my least favorite format for music. Aside from this minor quibble, the artwork and booklet look nice, and fit the music pretty well.

Musically, “Never Cross the Dead” carries on a lot of the same traditions from the previous album. The guitars have a massive sound, the vocals are deep and guttural, and the band plays at a slower tempo with an occasional break into a mid-paced rockfish riff. Aesthetic similarities aside, “Never Cross the Dead” is certainly not a retread of the last album. “Fulfill the Curse” was typically a straight forward album, with a lot of the emphasis placed on the riffs. “Never Cross the Dead” on the other hand, is much more compositionally rich and structurally dense. The band utilizes melody a lot more, and guitar parts weave in and out of each other in a rather complex fashion. The melodies and leads are not at all intrusive and work quite nicely with the slower tempos. This approach really highlights how well the band is capable of with working with one another, and it’s nice to see them developing more of their own sound instead of just releasing the same album twice.

On the whole, “Never Cross the Dead” is a very strong album. It isn’t completely flawless; the band is rather bold with their harmonizing and more intricate portions, not all of which work as well as they could, but generally produce a strong and thick sound that is appropriately heavy. Much like the previous album, the band concludes with a cover of a horror theme, this time its “Theme From Return of the Evil Dead”, the theme from the second Blind Dead film. It doesn’t work nearly as well as “Theme From Manhattan Baby”, but it’s a nice touch, and is a nice metaphor for the tone of the album. Much like “Return of the Evil Dead”, “Never Cross the Dead” on the whole isn’t quite as strong as the original, but actively sets out to differ from its predecessor.

Doom junkies will find a lot to enjoy on this album. Even though I personally feel it’s not quite as good as “Fulfill the Curse”, it’s still an excellent listen that has received constant rotation on my stereo. The band’s future potential is one of the more exciting selling points for me. Hooded Menace has really started to carve out their own path, and not only have they set themselves apart from other doom/death acts, but have transcended being just a side project of Phlegethon. Since this is their first effort that really starts to differentiate from the standard doom/death formula, some portions are bound to be awkward. However, as the band progresses and gets more accustomed to working within their own set of parameters as opposed to the genre’s conventions, I have no doubt that we will see more great albums come from this outfit.

Black Dethe - "Mary's Blood" (USA)

2010-05-05T12:24:00.000-04:00

Vocal performance can be a make or break part of a band. A bad job behind the mic can turn a great band performance into a tedious listen, and conversely, an energized and inspired vocal performance can bring a lot of excitement to an otherwise dull recording. One of the cases where this holds especially true are the California band Black Dethe.

Formed in 1985 during the beginning of the death metal explosion, its easy to see why Black Dethe got immediately lost in the shuffle. Not only was their name rather similar to an already established act Black Death (who to this day still have a substantially larger cult following), but their first demo, 1985's "Evil Prayer", was very typical of the time. The sound is very tinny, the performance is sloppy, the songwriting is unfocused and the vocals are rather standard death metal vocals with a fair amount of distortion on them. Not to say that the demo is bad by any means, but it doesn't exactly do much to distinguish itself from its peers.

Three years made all the difference in the band's sound. By their second and final demo, the band had honed in on their sound, found a slightly better recording techniques, and switched vocalists. "Mary's Blood" (1988) shows the band playing the same kind of simplistic death/thrash found on "Evil Prayer", but the vocal change makes this one an instant hit. The new vocalist, Chris Turner, sounds totally manic and possessed throughout the entire recording. Starting off with an intrusive backwards fade-in to the vocals (one of my favorite production techniques in heavy metal), Turner's vocals come in the form of rapid paced blood curdling screams that sound like they are being unleashed from the bowels of hell. This guy has a truly powerful voice that I'm sure left his throat sore for days after the recording session; they are the same kind of brutal howl that Martin Van Drunen uses, except about an octave higher in pitch.

Musically the band is no slouch either. As previously noted, the band plays a sort of simplistic yet energetic form of death metal. The band isn't going to pull any punches that the listener won't expect on here, but the sound quality is pretty good, allowing for plenty of room for all the instruments to breathe; the bass is actually prominent in the mix, which isn't something you hear too often in death metal demos, as typically when you get a bass sound it tends to drown out the rest of the music. Solos come short and furious and the drumming is very loose and at times very hardcore influenced, playing more into the energetic nature of these tunes.

As far as I know, the band didn't record anything past this demo beyond one rehearsal track entitled "Iron Cross" which is in the same vein as this demo. A shame, really, as these guys had definitely hit their mark with this recording and showed a great deal of promise. Unfortunately this stuff has not been reissued on any format that I'm aware of, which is also a shame. Make sure to track this one down, crank at full volume and be prepared for a mighty declaration of "Mary's Blood".

Demontage - "The Principal Extinction" (Can)

2010-03-28T11:55:00.006-04:00

A big aspect of modern black metal that I find to be lacking is the "metal" half of the genre's title. The Norweigan bands in the early 1990s largely detatched themselves from the riff-based metal aspect to the genre; "Transilvanian Hunger" and "Hvis Lyset Tar Oss" are both extremely minimalistic releases that bear almost no resemblance to more riff-based foundational acts like Venom or Bathory. For whatever reason, most likely the notoriety gained through non-musical acts, the Norweigan sound became more or less the dominant force in black metal, of which its influence is still heavily felt. While I certainly like the original bands from the early 90s, there are far fewer things more tedious than a generic black metal record. More often than not, this means a random grouping together of various elements of Norweigan black metal. As such, its always a breath of fresh air to hear a band which doesn't fall into that mold and does their own thing.

As far as black metal bands go, Demontage is about as "metal" as you can get. Its almost a misnomer to call them "black metal", as their sound bears the most resemblance to pre-Bathory 'occult metal' bands like Mercyful Fate or Cirith Ungol. However, the similarities to these bands largely ends with the atmosphere conveyed, as musically they are be all over the map. "The Principal Extinction" is band's second full length, and easily the best material they have recorded to date. The "Madness Disease" demo (2004) was good, but the performances were a little shaky and the songwriting largely unfocused. "Sacrilege 'n Miscreancy", following in 2006, was a huge improvement, and tightened up a lot of areas in "Madness Disease" which needed work. "The Principal Extinction", released in January 2010 on Shadow Kingdom Records follows up on that trend again, and here the band delivers a truly great album.

Demontage's scope is quite epic here; track times range from 5:50 to 9:56, and largely fall on the longer side. The songs are far from repetitive, however and showcase excellent songwriting. Song structures build up on top of themselves, and guitar riffs flow into each other effortlessly. Much like the lengthier tracks of Poison's "Into the Abyss", Demontage has an excellent sense of composition and flow, and these tracks never get boring. The riffs themselves are quite unique, and Spilomantis' style reminds me a bit of Temis Osmond from Sabbat. Both players are able to lead the music in a confident style that, while at times is intricate, is never flashy or wanky. In addition to this, the phrasing of the riffs is rather long, so it never feels that too much is being crammed in at once. The songs tend to vary a lot in tempo, and the band is able to handle the slower, more atmospheric sections just as well as they can handle the more intense and faster tempos.

The band's performance is excellent all around. While the song structures themselves are complex at times, the band has a very loose feel to their sound. In particular the drummer often differentiates from a straight forward blasting style, and plays like the more looser drumming that could be found on a heavy 70s album. Touches of keyboards and vocal effects are implemented at times, but are used sparingly, and never feel out of place or goofy. Vocals are delivered in a great over the top style that reminds me of a dirtier Nasty Savage; a majority of the vocals are delivered in a semi-clean mid-pitched register, but will just as often go into a glorious high pitched wail. The vocal delivery is much more confident here than on previous recordings, and greatly works to the band's advantage. Productionwise, this album is good, though at the bass can be a little buried at times. The guitars and drums, however, have plenty of room to breathe and play off each other, and the band sounds very raw and alive. The guitar tone has a strange tone which took me a little while to get used to, but ultimately I feel it works well with the band's sound.

Both the natural energy and the over the top vocal delivery make this a very fun listen, but at the time same is able to successfully capture the darker and more occult feel that defines the first wave black metal sound. In a sense, the atmosphere is really the biggest thing Demontage has in common with the genre; the band doesn't really sound like any one band, nor are they clearly derived from a particular source. Unlike clone, old-school or retro bands, Demontage takes a first wave black metal approach to their music, but are able to incorporate their influences into something that legitimately sounds new and fresh. Fortunately it sounds nothing like any modern black metal I've heard, and manages to avoid all the pitfalls of overproduction, Darkthrone cloning, tedious clicky drums and lifeless blast beats. As a result, this will immediately turn off a great deal of listeners, and would be a treat for any fans that appreciate black metal's core elements (not to be confused with mallcore elements). A great deal of humor comes through in the wordy lyrics, and the band's performance indicate that they are having just as much fun playing as the listener is following along.

As it is a recent release, "The Principal Extinction" can still be easily obtained directly from Shadow Kingdom Records. Currently it is only out on CD, but this is a fantastic album that deserves more than to be constricted by a 5" diameter and reflective surfaces. Regardless of format repressings, Shadow Kingdom Records has a bigger distribution channel than Unsung Heroes Records (the label which released "Sacrilege 'n Miscreancy"), so hopefully this will be able to provide the band with more deserved exposure. I can't wait to see how the band will follow this one up; they are one of the best active bands now, and I can't think of a better way to start 2010 off on a high note.

Dr. Shrinker - "Wedding the Grotesque" (USA)

2010-03-28T11:55:00.001-04:00

When one thinks of death metal in the late 1980s, there are a few hotspots that come to mind. Florida, and Sweden are among the most popular, but several other locations had excellent scenes as well - New York, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, France, and the list can go on. The midwest is one of the more overlooked areas in the United States when it comes to death metal. Many of these bands never really made it past demo stage, and even the most successful and influential band from the area (Chicago's Master) took more than half a decade to release a full length. Dr. Shrinker were one of the many bands from this region who maintained a sizeable cult following throughout the years, but remained largely ignored by the growing death metal scene.

Forming in 1987, the band released three official demos in their short career. The first demo, "Recognition" was a very basic, primitive, sloppy and crude recording. Good in its own right, it did not really have the personality or charm to distinguish it from more competant bands who played in a similar vein. Their final demo, "The Eponym" shows a very cleanly produced band going for a more technical death metal sound, not too far off from what Death would be doing on "Human", and unfortunately he clean production and overcomposed songs killed most of the raw energy the band had.

"Wedding the Grotesque", however, is their Goldilocks album. Not too basic, not too produced, but just right in the middle, acting as the best of both worlds. Rather long for a demo, 12 tracks in 47 minutes, "Wedding the Grotesque" is easily the band's masterpiece, and one of the best death metal recordings to come out of the 1980s. Starting off with a sample from Hellraiser 2, the band immediately kicks into high gear with their brand of death metal, which rarely lets up for the remainder of the demo. The guitar tone on here is extremely filthy and savage and lends a great deal of atmosphere to these songs, and the vocals are a unique high pitched shriek that does not sound like any other band I have heard. Combined with the unique delivery, the vocals are often coupled with over the top reverb, echo and delay effects in key points which accentuate the eccentric nature of the music. Its unfortunate that the band cleaned up their sound and went with a more 'professional' approach on their next demo, as this style of production really highlights a certain insanity that many bands were unable to capture.

The songs themselves retain a simplistic approach to their composition, and the riffs are very well placed and keep the listener engaged without getting overly repetitive. Drumming also lends to this, with some excellently timed fills and hits that greatly add to the music, something many drummers tend to avoid in favor of tedious double bass runs.

Dr. Shrinker is certainly competant at playing fast death metal, but really shines when they favor a slower demo, creating a very morbid and brooding sound. The band does display a certain sense of humor, in both the lyrics and their selection of samples (the best being one of Charlie Manson spouting off gibberish), but it does not get in the way of the overall dark feel of the music.

Necroharmonic has reissued the band's three demos on a CD called "Grotesque Wedlock", which includes lots of awesome flyers that contain some great artwork in them. The only material missing from this discgraphy CD is a rehearsal song called "Our Necropsy" that appears on a split 7" with Nunslaughter - an excellent slower track which would have fit right in on "Wedding the Grotesque". While this demo is slightly off-kilter death metal that might not sound much alike other primitive and simplistic death metal bands like Master or Massacre, its certainly an underground classic that deserves greater praise and recognition then it has received over the years.

Mondocane - "Project One" (Ita)

2010-03-28T11:53:00.001-04:00

"Crossover" is one of my least favorite names for a musical genre. Starting off as what happens when punks slow their music down and start to write heavier riffs in the style of contemporary thrash metal bands, the first crossover bands (D.R.I., S.O.D., Suicidal Tendencies, etc) bridged the gap between two hostile audiences that were playing styles of music more similar to each other than either side of the fence would probably care to admit. D.R.I. and Suicidal both started off as a fast hardcore bands and S.O.D. contained both members of the NYHC and New York metal community.

Crossover itself is useful for describing what these bands did for music rather than the actual music itself. If "Speak English or Die" were recorded by four guys with shaved heads and Agnostic Front tattoos, it would most likely be seen as an ultraheavy NYHC album as opposed to the penultimate crossover record. Instead the lineup consists of three guys with long hair who played in Anthrax. Since almost all metal bands since the NWOBHM movement (and many during said movement) were musically influenced by punk in some way or another, crossover as a term to describe a band's music quickly loses its meaning and instead becomes more of a descriptor of a cultural movement. Bands like Hellhammer, Slaughter, Repulsion, Slayer, Kreator, Sarcofago and Metallica all had a great deal of punk influence in their sound, aesthetic and attitude, but it would not make sense to call any crossover. Conversely, hardcore bands such as Sheer Terror, Breakdown, Deathside, and Tetsu Arrey had a heavier aesthetic, but it would also be erroneous to label them as anything other than firmly rooted in the hardcore scene.

Such is the case of Mondocane. Formed as a supergroup between two of Italy's best black/thrash bands, Necrodeath and Schizo (both logos are prominently featured on the album's cover), and named after some of Italy's most outrageous exploitation films, "Project One" is a manic thrash metal album which is constantly labelled as crossover for reasons which I am still rather unclear on. While Italy had a rather vibrant and large hardcore scene during the 1980s, "Project One" musically has nothing in common with what bands like C.C.M., Raw Power or Negazione were doing, nor were Schizo or Necrodeath in any related to the hardcore scene. If anything, Schizo's song "Nazi and Proud" featured on both of their first two demos would have alienated themselves from the Italian punks.

Both Necrodeath and Schizo started off releasing sloppy and nasty demos that are classics in the mid 80s black metal scene. By the time they were releasing full length albums they had tightened and cleaned up their sound, and instead sounded more like the heavy thrash which was typical of their German allies. Mondocane's sound isn't really that far off from a blend between both band's late 80s output; the vocals are delivered in the exact same fashion as "Main Frame Collapse", and many of the riffs would not be out of place on either album. The song structures alternate between hyperspeed, almost death metal in tone riffs and slower mosh oriented riffs typical of late 80s thrash bands. What separates this recording from the glut of bands doing similar things is the rather chaotic approach to composition; riffs are totally across the board and jump into one another without any sort of warning or attempt at clean flow. In the hands of lesser talented bands, this can come across as a mismatch or a bad cut and paste job, but here works in the bands favor in creating a breakneck and pummeling assault on the listener that never gets boring. The core of the band consists of three members, but all seven guys from both Necrodeath and Schizo eventually end up playing on the album in some form or another, which adds to the dynamic nature of these songs.

In comparison to both Necrodeath's and Schizo's late 80s albums, "Project One" has a rather slick and clean production job; the drums in particular sound extremely clean. Fortunately the band delivers an extremely energetic performance, and the more produced sound does not take away any of the aggressive elements of the Mondocane's music. The song titles would indicate a brand certain "wacky" thrash like Wehrmacht or Spazztic Blur, but fortunately the album is completely free of jokey musical passages. It is probably these song titles as well as the Exploited cover of "Fuck the U.S.A." (here changed to "Fuck the U.S.L." - about soccer?) which would lend to the miscategorization of this as crossover. While the Exploited cover is by far the most minimalistic song on the album, it still has a very metal feel to it, and fits in with the rest of the album quite nicely.

As far as I know, this has only been released on vinyl and has yet to be reissued by anyone, which is unfortunate as it would appeal to anyone into the heavier thrash bands in the 80s. Fans of Necrodeath or Schizo should especially take note, as this really does not deviate too far from what either band was doing, and it is clear from this recording that those guys had a lot of fun making some great heavy music together. Just don't expect this to sound like "Speak English or Die".

Vorum - "Grim Death Awaits" (Fin)

2010-03-15T11:52:00.001-04:00

An instant way for a band to raise a yellow flag is to play music that is described as "throwback", "retro", or worst of all, "old-school". While I don't see anything inherantly wrong with trying to emulate the sounds of the elder bands in the genre, often times when a band is hyped up as "old school", they are part of a certain retro trend which more often then not captures the aesthetics of the genre, but completely misses the spirit and attitude of the originals. A perfect example of this is the recent thrash revival trend that is being pushed by Earache and Relapse. While I do give these bands points for trying and occasionally being entertaining in a live setting, no amount of high tops, Ed Repka cover art, or unsubtle references to the genre classics can produce a good album. Good albums require a certain tone and feel for the music, which unfortunately cannot be replicated by using the thrash metal album cookie cutter.

A nice surprise is when one of these "old school" bands turns out to play ripping music. Vorum, forming recently in 2006 as Haudankaivaja (Finnish for "grave digger", in my opinion a much cooler name that unfortunately was already taken by the old German band) are one of the more convincing bands that play in a retro death metal style. Going straight for the late 80s/early 90s Scandinavian death metal sound, the band is not only able to capture the aesthetics perfectly, but also plays with the kind of conviction and savagery required to get this sort of music across. "Grim Death Awaits" is their first release under the name of Vorum, and it immediately places them on my radar of new bands to watch out for.

Falling somewhere in between the Finnish and Swedish death metal sound, this EP wastes no time getting to the point. A brief slower instrumental opens up the album, utilizing the extremely massive production and doomy riffs that early Finnish death metal is known for. The production on this recording is seriously huge, and demands to listened to at maximum volume. The guitars have a low and deep sound to them, but are extremely clear, and do not overpower the bass, which also has an enormous sound. This sound is perfect for this recoridng; the guitars ring out during the doomier parts and the more mid-tempo sections, but still maintain their clarity when the tempo picks up. Drums are a little too clean sounding for my liking and could have used a bit more of an organic approach to their playing, but that is a minor complaint and does not really drag down the rest of the album.

Structually, this recording is a bit over the map. The songs quickly switch to faster, more blast beat driven parts, to mid-tempo swaggering sections, to more doomy parts without much transitional elements. In a way, the band is rather guilty of the "riff salad" approach, as the songs themselves don't have much cohesion. Fortunately, most of the songs are quite short (all but the final track are under the three minute mark), and the band is quite capable of realizing when it is time to change up the music. No section stays around for too long allowing the listener to get bored. While the songs might have been improved by polishing up the songwriting a bit, it adds an element of ferocity to the recording. The music does not really let up at all throughout the EP's short running time; most songs run right into each other, and the band effortlessly jumps from riff to riff without allowing for much breathing room.

While this isn't a perfect release by any sense of the imagination, it doesn't really need to be. "Grim Death Awaits" is an excellent addition to any Finnish death metal collection in that it sounds "old school" without sounding phony, and successfully emulates the aesthetics and ideas of the old bands without sounding too derivative of one band's sound. Its pretty clear they were inspired by the likes of Convulse, but even during some of the more simplistic downwards slashing riffs, I never really got a sense of deja vu while listening to this. The band might be a little reckless in their songwriting, but that works to their favor on this recording. Vorum are talented enough to have most of their riffs hit head on, and really excel at writing the murkier slow sections. I don't think anyone can claim that "Grim Death Awaits" is breaking down new boundaries, but when the songs on here are this good and destructive, pushing the envelope is far from necessary. As of this writing, the CD edition of this should be readily available (from what I understand, talks of vinyl were entertained but did not really move forward), and metalheads who can't get enough of the ancient Finnish death metal sound could do far worse than to pick this up.

Carnage - "The Day Man Lost" (Swe)

2010-03-15T11:51:00.001-04:00

"Reek of Putrefaction" is simply one of the greatest albums ever released. A lot of people hate it for all the right reasons - it's absolutely filthy, the vocals are disgusting, downtuned and murky, the guitars have a huge, muddy cavernous tone, the entire thing sounds like a blur upon first listen, theres tons of guitar squealing leads that are about three times as loud as the rest of the music, the lyrics (when they can be deciphered) are absolutely disgusting, and of course the playing is super sloppy, bearing none of the finesse that the later Carcass albums would have. "Reek" is the true litmus test to whether or not I can fully trust someone's musical tastes or not. If you want to listen to overproduced, slick and clean music, why bother with death metal or grindcore in the first place? Shouldn't a fan of this kind of music want the most disgusting and filthy sounds to come out of their speakers every time? Personally, I think so.

Figuring out how to top such a landmark recording is a pretty challenging task. Carnage clearly spent a lot of time trying to wrap their head around such an impossible seeming task, so they went probably the easiest route; releasing a demo tape that sounds exactly like it. Clone bands can be a tricky issue to review. Many times bands going for another band's specific sound can get all the aesthetic details right, which Carnage certainly does here. The thick, muddy guitar tone, the absurdly low pitch shifted vocals, the shrill divebomb guitar leads that are so much louder than the rest of the music, the sloppy blasting, its all found here. However, what most clone type bands neglect to incorporate into their music is the spirit of the original. Theres really no point in listening to a band that captures the musical stylings of the original, but fails to capture the manic intensity and attitude. For this reason bands like Cretin have no interest to me. If I wanted to listen to Repulsion, I would. If I wanted to listen to Transilvanian Hunger, I would, not some random USBM band that released their first demo in 2004.

Carnage however, does not fall into this trap here. They seem to know exactly what Carcass were going for, but more importantly how and why they went there, and as a result almost manage to outdo the masters at their own game. The guitar sound on here is absolutely massive, much heavier and downtuned than "Reek", which adds a lot to the recording. The only remotely negative thing I have to say about the demo is its length. The whole thing clocks in at about four and a half minutes, which leaves the listener wanting a lot more. The band never lets up the intensity for these four and a half minutes, and while it may have been interesting to see what the band could have done on 7" or even an LP in this style, it might be for the best that the band decided to keep it short; the recording never gets boring or redundant, which is often the worst crime a musician can commit.

The band would change directions drastically after this, moving towards the style of death metal made popular by Nihilist. The second demo, "Infestation of Evil" and the "Dark Recollections" full length are both quite excellent recordings in their own right (the latter of which even absorbs and recontextualizes two songs from "The Day Man Lost" demo), but neither can even begin to approach the extreme and filthy sounds on here. The cover art, a crudely done cut, paste and xerox job of a basic dripping logo on top of a nuclear explosion matches the music quite nicely, and despite the fact that these songs are easily available on the "Dark Recollections" CD as bonus tracks, would look even nicer in 7" format.

"The Day Man Lost" is one of the rare recordings which are far more than the sum of its parts. Going beyond basic Carcass cloning and almost surpassing the original, this is easily in the top tier of grindcore recordings, and has a tendency to get overlooked in the wake of their more popular LP.

Pentagram - 1987 demo (Chl)

2010-03-15T11:49:00.000-04:00

Like many other bands that tend to fall under the radar, going with a rather generic name like "Pentagram" can cause confusion amongst other, more popular bands bearing the same moniker. In the case of these Chilean maniacs, they had to compete with a long running and influential American doom band , as well as a groups composed of Mexicans, Turks, and Swedes. The American Pentagram were one of the first bands to play heavy metal (in the US or anywhere else in the world), and as good as they are, for my money this Chilean group represents the best band to use the Pentagram name, and this demo, their first officially released recording is arguably their best output.

Slightly different than some of the other contemporary South American bands, this three song demo is very composed, focused and tight in its execution. Instead of opting for a schizophrenic wall of noise, off time drums and maniac vocals, Pentagram's brand of sonic assault is a more controlled approach, falling somewhere between what Slayer was doing on "Hell Awaits" and a more musically competent "Morbid Visions". This demo captures the darker atmosphere of those two recordings very well, and while it doesn't push any boundaries in the way of speed or extremity, has an excellent sense of songwriting that is effectively able to carry across a very dark and sinister feeling.

Most of the music on here is mid-tempo and almost plodding at points. The faster moments never really take off, and the band is at their strongest when they are working at a slightly slower speed. Guitar tone is somewhat on the treble end of the spectrum, but this can be expected from a low budget demo. It works quite well with the recording, and is mixed at a sufficient volume which allows for the drums and the bass to be fully audible. The vocals on the other hand, completely dominate the recording, and while they do not drown out any of the other instruments, they are certainly the prominent layer in the band's sound. Instead of a rasp or a growl, the vocals are delivered in a very harsh shout; these are some of the most intense and angriest vocals I've ever heard. All the lyrics are intelligible, and while they deal with basic occult/satanic stuff, the extremely confident and strong vocal delivery conveys a much stronger sense of sincerity, especially the lines written in command form (a majority of the first track, "Fatal Predictions").

This demo is an absolute masterpiece. The band would release a second demo shortly after, which is in the same vein and maintains the same level of quality as this one, but perhaps due to familiarity, I slightly prefer this recording. This recording has been reissued numerous times, first on 7" (the cover of which is pictured above, omits the final track), and at least two discography CDs have been released. "Demoniac Possession" has been covered numerous times, one of the best being by Torturer on their 1992 LP "Oppressed by the Force".

The South American scene has produced a great deal of stellar recordings, but in my book this one lies at the top. While the most competent of Pentagram's peers such as Sarcofago and Vulcano approach the dark atmosphere and intensity of this recording, they ultimately do not surpass it. This sort of stuff is truly nasty sounding music, and even though its a bit tighter and composed than what most of South America was doing at the time, its not exactly the kind of stuff which will appeal to the Century Media types. An absolutely standout recording, this one is mandatory listening for anyone into raw death metal.

Terrorama - Omnipotence (2008; Nuclear War Now! Productions)

2010-03-14T00:55:00.004-05:00

I have looked down in the abyss
I have suffered the total disdain
I have refused their concrete guidance
I have seen the spark of life slowly fade away.

It is an unfortunate truth that thrash metal in general is a stagnant genre whose confining boundaries leave very little room for true innovation and progression; most of the attempts to broaden its horizons have failed utterly. It has ultimately been the South American and lesser known German and Eastern Bloc styles that have triumphed over time, showcasing a greater resiliency to change and recontextualization than the more heavy metal derived sounds of the most well known band from America. This is where Terrorama takes off, originating somewhere in between the wild extravagancies of the aforementioned and some of the more astute American bands such as Sadus and Holy Terror. In contrast, however, Terrorama’s style is one of cold precision and calculated extremity, not in a clinical nor sterile sense, but rather akin to a premeditated murder. The unbridled passion and unorthodox and unconventional approaches that populated the South American scene through bands such as Mutilator, MX, Vulcano, and Holocausto is quite evident in the band’s sound, yet it is done so in a controlled and somewhat refined manner. Some may question what worth can be found in a band taking influence from the frantic and amorphous black/death/thrash metal stylings of Graf Spee and Reencarnation and not utilizing the chaotic and amateurish approach that they emphasized, but it is a testament to these musicians that they have been able to harness this energy and rearrange it into something that is both new and is still identifiable with those bands who paved the way before them.

Omnipotence is a struggle between order and chaos. At one end of the spectrum is the desire to unleash and outpouring of unrestrained mayhem akin to Debustrol and Poison and Sarcófago, while at the opposite end is the determination of an orchestrated and controlled ritual murder, enjoying it all the while. The compromise between these two ambitions is what is ultimately heard on this album, managing to keep the vibrant force of those early primordial speed, death, black, thrash metal bands before genre divisions were relevant while at the same time organizing and harnessing this sonic whirlwind and placing it into a more elaborate setting. As with just about any worthwhile thrash metal album, Omnipotence is bursting with violent intensity and unpredictability, making use of unorthodox harmonies and angular riffing in favor of simply aping Slayer, Kreator, or Destruction, which seems to be what just about every other thrash metal band is striving for at the moment. Yet, at the same time, there is a purpose to this violence, an ultimate end and not simply a means. It is a condemnation of all of the great failings of the human race, a recognition of the greater insignificance of our actions, and a reminder of our perennial shortsightedness and the self-preservation of our own atrocities. It is the violent soundtrack to the violence that we commit against ourselves.

Primitivism begets primitivism as the simplicity of the lyrics barked out by Peter Lidén, not without an imperfect understanding of some of the nuances of the English language, reflect the simplicity of the collective mind of our civilization as we are seemingly doomed to repeat our own failures. It is “Archaic Visions” which reminds us of the “modern Gilles de Rais” and of the penchant for heinous and despicable acts that has not shed from us with the continual evolution of our species. “Immaculate Genocide” is a disturbingly direct confrontation with the realities of our own egos and our willingness to cause harm to one another. The lyrics consist primarily of the recitation of dozens of concentration camps, mass murderers, and various dictators and tyrants responsible for the death of several millions of innocent lives throughout the course of human history. “It is just another ethnical cleansing, new deeds will always come around. / Throughout the history of time; IMMACULATE GENOCIDE. / Innocent humans tortured to death, (acts) soon into oblivion. / Throughout the history of time; IMMACULATE GENOCIDE.” The song ends abruptly, as though the story is not yet fully written, an awareness that the atrocities spoken of here will continue well into the foreseeable future, and there will be yet another verse written by human history itself.

It is the clearsighted vision encapsulated in the lyrics in its exposure of our own sicknesses that necessitates the clear and sharp production that provides a further level of depth to the experience. It is the seemingly omnipotent power of mankind to cause harm to itself and to perpetuate its own ignorance that fuels the vitriolic message behind Terrorama’s music. The artwork by Sami Albert “Witchfinder” Hynninen is a testament to these principles held within the music, a perversion of the immaculate conception in which a parasitic demon spawn is birthed from the side of a grisly bastardization of the virgin Mary, the parasite nursing itself from her breast. The depth of meaning in this painting is exponential when taken within the context of the work as a whole, though this basic interpretation should suffice. It is “The Self Exorcism” of our own species to which Omnipotence seeks to bring to our attention.

The album closes with the aforementioned track, at the end of which is a recapitulation of the explication given above. It is the cold, unnamed judge of mankind, looking upon the frail remains of the human race and condemning it for its sins, past, present, and future. Translated from Latin, it reads:

Who art thou whom I see here standing beneath this figure?
You are ghastly to behold with thy mournful stature.
Thy shadowy form, so utterly thin and weightless,
Thy polluted nature strikes me with terror.

I am the one whom every creature dreads.
They fear me from the past, now in the present, and shall in times to come.
I am the judge of verdicts most severe in judgment.
My name is of no consequence; I condemn with dire punishment.

Falling just short of the half hour mark, Omnipotence rarely plunges below the sound barrier, maintaining a level of speed and energy with an eye toward brevity that has made albums such as Reign in Blood, Illusions, Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good!, and Syzygial Miscreancy what they are. Channeling the raw speed metal ferocity of Show No Mercy and Power and Pain, songs such as “Inseminated With Scorn” and “Perversion Extol” show their range and breadth of knowledge throughout the history of the genre. Never failing to remind us of the kind of riffs out of which this genre was formed, “Misanthropic Genius” opens with a riff that one might expect to hear out of California early on, then moves on to something more in the vein of Kreator, while at the same time showcasing their penchant for adapting the old for the new. Taking cues from bands such as Desaster, Nifelheim, Absu, and Deströyer 666 along the way, Terrorama has succeeded in creating one of the more significant thrash oriented metal albums of the past decade and beyond.

Issue 1 Approaching

2010-03-14T00:43:00.002-05:00

Greetings. A small update.

Editing of the first issue of The Heretic's Torch is complete. We will print up copies as soon as we are able, and will post about it once it's available. In the meantime, enjoy these sample pages of what to expect. I will also be posting a new review that will be available in this issue shortly.

Nirvana 2002 - "Recordings 89 - 91" (Swe)

2010-03-08T21:00:00.002-05:00

Early 90s Swedish death metal remains one of my favorite musical scenes. The amount of great material from that particular time period can almost be overwhelming at times. Fortunately due to its high visibility, it has been discussed and analyzed at great lengths already. The "Swedish Death Metal" book is an invaluable reference source that covers not only the history, but has a great discography section. As the scene's particular history is detailed in great length elsewhere (and mentioned briefly in my previous Afflicted Convulsion review), this introduction will be cut a little short.

Nirvana 2002 has always been a favorite of mine. In their all too brief career spanning three years, they managed to record some of the best material to come out of the Swedish death metal scene. Falling quickly into obscurity due to lack of a full length (as well as sharing a name with possibly the most popular rock band to come out in the last 20 years), its good to see this band get the recognition they deserve. A high profile label like Relapse taking interest in one of the better demo-only bands isn't exactly a common scenario, but its nice to see that the label hasn't completely forgotten their roots. Included on this reissue is pretty much everything the band had recorded aside from a handful of unsalvagable tracks.

First up is their contribution to the legendary compilation "Projections of a Stained Mind". Containing tracks by Entombed, Macrodex, Grotesque, Dismember, Merciless and Dead's only studio recordings with Mayhem, the mostly Swedish compilation manages to cover most of the heavy hitters of the genre. An essential document not to be missed, Nirvana 2002's track is one of the many standouts. Setting the tone nicely for the rest of Nirvana 2002's studio recordings, "Mourning" showcases all of the band's best elements; massive buzzsaw guitar tone, crushing mid-tempo riffs, howled vocals and top notch songwriting. Stylistically, the band plays it very close to Entombed and Dismember. The tempo changes, accompanying background growls, drumming, and general riff structure should be quite familiar to anyone who has heard "Left Hand Path" or "Like an Everflowing Stream". What the band lacks in originality is more than made up by songwriting skills. Wisely utilizing simplicity (the main riff in this track is mainly just straight quarter notes) and a good sense of flow, "Mourning" would not be out of place on either of the previously mentioned classic records.

The "Disembodied Spirits" demo makes up the next three tracks, and is in my opinion the band's best work. These tracks have been remastered for this anthology and sound great. While the remaster job lacks the rawer and unpolished edge that the demo I'm used to hearing has, the band did a great job in cleaning up the tapes. The songs sound extremely heavy without reeking of a glossy overproduced studio sheen. The overdubbed vocals and keyboard accompaniments have been removed, but this is barely noticable, and the original mix of the demo has been included as bonus tracks at the tail end of the album. An even better job was done with the 1991 promo tracks, as these sound as massive as "Disembodied Spirits" and "Mourning", whereas the dub I've been used to hearing was borderline unlistenable, and its nice to hear these songs the way they were intended to be heard.

The next batch of tracks consist of various rehearsal and live cuts. These rehearsal tracks are fantastic and highlight a completely different side to the band. Described as 'porta' recordings, these tracks are far more raw and blown out. Vocals here sound pitchshifted down, and the band bashes their way through these songs with a certain youthful energy that makes up for the fact that their songwriting skills were not particularly honed in at this point in their career. The live version of "Mourning" from their first show in 2007 at the release party of the "Swedish Death Metal" book is great and makes me particularly jealous of the audience. The band has been booked for the Maryland Deathfest this year, and hopefully the outdoor sound there won't rob them of their power.

I can't think of a better label to reissue these recordings than Relapse. Some might accuse the label of going for an easy cash grab, making this stuff readily available to the world is certainly nothing that I can complain about. "Disembodied Spirits" is one of the standout recordings to come out of the Swedish death metal scene, and its nice to see it getting a good deal of exposure. The reissue itself is very well done; the liner notes are quite extensive and contain a good amount of pictures in them. My only complaint is that the label issued the CD in digipack form, which is quite possibly my least favorite format. The vinyl edition was pressed in reletively low copies (100 on clear and 500 on black) and is already difficult to find; copies on clear are already hitting over $100 on eBay. It would be nice if the label pressed more copies on black, but the CD is still widely available. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is on par with Dismember and Entombed, and is an absolutely essential purchase for any death metal fan.

Morsüre - "Acceleration Process" (Fra)

2010-03-08T20:57:00.001-05:00

One of the more attractive elements that draw me to certain heavy bands are those artists who are consciously trying to push the envelope. This shouldn't be confused with some of the "experimental" bands today which have 9 members, female vocals, and flute solos, but bands that legitimately have a concrete idea of what the core elements of heavy metal are and tried to push their music to that other level of the game. As evidenced by many of these reviews currently on this blog, its not that I don't appreciate bands that play in a tried and true style, but every now and then its refreshing to hear someone that is trying something different. Voivod were one of the earliest oddball thrash bands who had released two outstanding albums ("War and Pain" and "Rrroooaaarrr") in the mid 80s that perfectly captured the destructive ideals of thrash and the blossoming death metal scene, but also managed to integrate a far more dissonant approach to their songwriting. Not too many bands were influenced by Voivod's sound, and even today few bands approach music from a similar dissonant angle, however, there are two notable exceptions; the midwestern hardcore band Die Kruezen and Morsüre from France.

Much like in the case of Die Kruezen, whether Morsüre was directly influenced by Voivod's music or were just happening to be doing similar things at the same time is difficult to determine. Morsüre's first demo, "M.A.D." (standing of course for Mutually Assured Destruction - I'm a big fan of cold war imagery and paranoia in heavy metal and punk) came in 1984, the same year that Voivod's first album was released. By this time Morsüre had already developed their sound; dissonant guitar playing, almost "anti-riffs", at very high speeds, but don't have a driving rhythm typical of the thrash bands at the time. This wasn't party thrash music, but instead a very intense and cacophonous blast of noise at this listener. In short, much like Voivod's "Rrroooaaarrr".

In 1985, the band released "Acceleration Process", which reprised all of the songs from the demo and included six others. The playing and tone is very similar on the LP as it is on the demo with one very noticable exception; the use of an electronic drum kit. The band stated that they wanted to play the fastest, most extreme music on the planet, and that when the drummer played on a standard drum kit, the sound recording was not good enough to effectively capture how fast the drummer was actually playing. Instead of going for a muddy and blurry wall of noise, the band figured that if the drummer played an electronic kit, the recorded sound would be much clearer for the drum hits. In addition to this, the drumming was apparently sped up in the studio to further add to the intensity.

Its really difficult to say whether or not this approach worked or not. The drumming is extremely fast, and while the drums are sped up slightly, the drummer does do some notable work on the kit. However, the electronic drum sounds very out of place for this kind of music and is very high in the mix. It took me a while to get over this hurdle, but I personally feel the juxtaposition adds to the already chaotic nature of the music, just pushing it over the top a little more. The rest of the playing on this album is very tight to accompany the drums, but composed in such a fashion that it doesn't particularly move in a way that would appeal to the average speed/thrash fan. Instead the album acts as a wall of noise; chaotic in the sense that the guitars and drums are moving very fast, and combined with the hoarse thick French accent of the singer (another way this band bears similarities to Voivod), this is a great album to listen on headphones to just to try to take all of it in. One of my friends remarked that it sounded similar to Revenge in this element, and I agree. While the playing on the album is tight, it isn't to the level of cleaned up, polished and overproduced degree that technical death metal bands from the late 90s were, and despite the band's attempts to produce a less muddy and cleaner drum sound, the album still feels like an impenetrable wall of random notes assaulting the listener from all angles.

Naturally an album of this nature won't appeal to everyone. Even Voivod, one of the most original and outstanding bands in heavy metal have a large amount of detractors. While this album really sounds like few albums I've heard, "Rrroooaaarrr" would be the closest point of comparison. Fortunately there was enough cult interest in the band to garner a CD reissue of "Acceleration Process" and the "M.A.D." demo by Hell's Headbangers, which should still be rather easy to find. Listeners wanting a similar dissonant and overwhelming musical experience to early Voivod will probably appreciate this, but those looking for a standard straight forward death/thrash recording may be disappointed. This isn't one of those albums that will click right away, but instead requires multiple listens to fully understand what is going on; appreciating this can be a process, but is ultimately a very rewarding album.

Funebre - "Cranial Torment" (Fin)

2010-03-08T20:53:00.002-05:00

The Swedish death metal scene may have been more prominent in the eyes of metal's more mainstream media, Finland certainly had a scene that was equally strong in the late 80s and early 90s. Bands from Finland tended to be more obscure and occult sounding in their approach, often opting for more slower, doomier parts than their Swedish counterparts. This type of music is getting more and more recognition these days through bands like Funebrarum who continue to carry the torch for this rather underapprciated style. Interestingly enough, Norway, in rather close proximity with both countries, did not have a particularly strong death metal scene during this time; many of the death metal bands that were active in the late 1980s, most of which only released demos or the odd 7" here and there, jumped ship to black metal when the 1990s rolled around.

Funebre's first demo, "Cranial Torment" is an example of the heaviest music this country could produce. Though the death metal scene in Finland was just beginning to take shape in 1989, a handful of bands had released demos in 1988 (including the classic Repulse "On a Car Trip in Sweden"). By 1989, many bands were playing in the slower, drudging style that Finland would become known for. The sound on this demo is extremely bass-heavy and loud, and is one of the heaviest recordings I've heard. The slower speeds and the massive guitar tone are channeled through a raw and unpolished sound, and the amount of bass will guarantee to make anything around the speakers shake when turned up to an appropriate volume.

The songs on here tend to be somewhat long, averaging around five or so minutes in length over five tracks. Compositionally this music tends to be rather simple, utilizing a large amount of crushing mid-tempo riffs which server to emphasize the pummeling faster paced sections. The solos are shrill, the vocals are gutteral and low pitched, and are exactly the complimentary elements that this type of music needs.

Two songs from this demo would be later reissued on 7", and the band would do two more recordings: a demo in 1990 (an excellent recording that isn't quite as heavy as this one), and a full length "Children of the Scorn" (which to this day I still find rather lackluster). "Cranial Torment" remains their best recording, and while not as out there as other Finnish masterpieces such as Demilich, it serves as an excellent example of the strange, heavy and brooding brand of death metal that Finland excelled in, and certainly deserves to be included in the same sentence as the rest of the Finnish classics; any fan of ultra-heavy death metal would be doing themselves a great disservice by not checking this out.

Various Artists - "Grind Madness at the BBC" (UK)

2010-03-02T21:19:00.003-05:00

Earache is without a doubt the record label most responsible for bringing grindcore into the eyes of a wider audience of extreme music fans. While Repulsion might have came first, they were largely an isolated demo-only band who received little recognition beyond the tape trading circuit. The British hardcore scene in the 80s was growing progressively heavier as the decade went on, and recordings like the Repulsion demos and Siege's "Drop Dead" demo added fuel to the fire. These recordings influenced Napalm Death to play faster and heavier, and whose recordings then influenced many other British hardcore bands to do the same. Born out of this was the grindcore scene, which was inarguably the first national scene to play in this style of music. Earache picked up on the scene instantly, and by 1988 had released ten LPs including the likes of Napalm Death (Scum and FETO), Carcass (Reek of Putrefaction) and Sore Throat (Disgrace to the Corpse of Sid).

John Peel also took an interest in the English hardcore scene and recorded sessions on his radio show for many of the bands. Included in this three CD boxset are all the Peel sessions recorded by the Earache bands, which include: Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror, Carcass, Bolt Thrower, Godflesh, Unseen Terror, Heresy and Intense Degree. Since the recordings span 8 different bands, most with multiple sessions, it makes more sense to talk about them one by one.

First up is Napalm Death, and probably the best choice for the leadoff band. Not only were the band the most influential, but in my opinion, they are by far the best. The Napalm Death sessions are probably my favorite grindcore recordings of all time; Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration are both fantastic albums, but these shows the band in a much tighter and aggressive form. The first two sessions (August 13th, 1987 and March 8th, 1988) are by far the most widely distributed out of the three Peel sessions. Along with Scum, the Strange Fruit cassette version of these two sessions were among the first extreme metal tapes I bought. When I was 13 I bought 25 tapes for $20 from a friend who was going the way of indie rock, most of which were purchased by cover art or band name alone. Scum was the one I listened to first and it immediately blew my mind. The A-side (from 1986) is a totally animalistic recording, raw, primitive, fast, sloppy and featuring some of the most intensely British caveman vocals ever recorded. The B-side (from 1987) was essentially a completely different band and showcased a much tighter band, with vocals even more diverse and manic. Aside from the bass player, who would be replaced by Shane Embury, this is the lineup that is present on the first two sessions, and they tear through the best tracks from Scum (and a handful from the upcoming From Enslavement to Oliberation album) with an incredible amount of ferocity. Gone is the muddy sound from both sides of Scum, and replaced with an extremely clear and heavy production job. The band plays extremely tight and faster than on the record, and the band doesn't waste any time getting down to business. "The Kill" opens up the performance with its classic three note riff-intro, seguing into total mayhem and fury. Mick Harris' drumming is unbelievably fast, and one of the reasons why early Napalm Death is so intense. Everything about these two sessions is absolutely perfect, from the one second blasts of noise to the Repulsion tribute at the beginning of "Deceiver", to some of the heaviest breakdown riffs the genre has to offer. Vocals are totally insane, and while I appreciate Broadrick's caveman style vocals on A-side scum, Lee Dorrian really shines here, with an unrelenting amount of high pitched shrieks.

The third peel session is from August 12th, 1990, and features yet another lineup. Recorded shortly after Harmony Corruption, the band switched vocalists and Jesse Pintado and Mitch Harris replaced Bill Steer on guitar. The band had slowed down their tempo in this time period and changed more into a straight forward death metal band. I like Harmony Corruption and most of the albums that follow, but theres no doubt that death metal-era Napalm can't even approach the brilliance of their grindcore days. The albums are listenable and enjoyable for what they are, and the band are still excellent live, but they lack the intense furor of the early works. This is reflected on the the third session here; the band does a competant job with the tracks (aside from a slightly jokey version of "Deceiver"), but overall it can't match the quality of the earlier recordings. Still, it is nice to have all the sessions in one place.

Occupying the second half of the first CD is Extreme Noise Terror. Also present here are three sessions (November 10th, 1987, May 1st, 1988 and February 6th, 1990), all of which are about the same quality and same style. Extreme Noise Terror play in a much more crust-influenced style; vocals are a strained howl and structurally the music is fast and basic hardcore. The production is quite heavy and the band plays very fast, but the overtly political lyrics might be off putting to some. One of the more interesting moments is the absurd cover of the Cockney Rejects track "I'm Not a Fool" (on here as "I'm a Bloody Fool"), complete with ridiculous crust vocals. Personally, I think this band was great, and this is arguably their finest material. Their first LP, 1989's "A Holocaust in Your Head" is a minor classic, but the band sounds much stronger and more convincing on this recordings, despite the length in time between the first and the third. Out of all the bands on the boxset, Extreme Noise Terror would rank in at #3 for me in terms of overall quality, slightly edged out by Unseen Terror and Napalm Death. Fans of Napalm Death's straight forward primal aggression should enjoy this massively, fans of UK crust and hardcore will naturally already be familiar with this, and others mileage may vary.

On to CD 2, we have two sessions by Carcass (December 13th, 1988 and December 2nd, 1990). Reek of Putrefaction remains one of my favorite albums. A simply massive recording, extremely vile and ugly, with nasty pitch shifted vocals, high pitched shrieks, extremely slopping playing, and ear piercing solos mixed way too loud in the music. Upon first listen, it will sound like a total mess and wall of noise to listeners, but those few that are attracted to that sort of thing will be eventually sucked in. Like many others, the band decided to tighten and clean up their sound for their follow up album Symphonies of Sickness. Theres no doubt that Symphonies is a great album, but it is almost the polar opposite of Reek. Songs hover around 5 minutes long, playing is extremely tight and clinical, vocals are much more controlled, and gone are the obnoxiously loud wailing leads. The two Peel sessions largely draw off of Symphonies material, with two songs from Reek thrown in the mix. By this point in their career the band had become quite accomplished musicians, and play the songs very similar to as they are played on the record. The two Reek songs suffer somewhat from accomplished musicianship, and the Symphonies songs are rendered somewhat redundant. Still, these songs make for an excellent listen, as Carcass in their prime wrote song of metal's best songs. The dry performance is somewhat fitting due to the rather clinical nature of the band's lyrics, and it would have been a treat to hear these songs broadcast on the radio.

Closing out the second disc, Bolt Thrower's sessions are much more dynamic and interesting than Carcass'. Encompassing three recordings (January 3rd, 1988, November 6th, 1988, and July 22nd, 1990), Bolt Thrower deliver a series of energetic death metal. Early Bolt Thrower is simply excellent. The band took a very hardcore influenced sound in the fact that they recontextualized the slower crust riffing style of earlier English bands like Antisect and Sacrilege and molded them into a second wave death metal sound. The guitars are massive and the vocals are extremely gruff, and these early tracks are filled with huge riffs. The playing is a bit sloppy and loose, but that particular playing style works in the band's favor. In my opinion, everything that this band has released is at least "good", and they remain one of the best live bands I've seen. I can't respect their decision to call it quits on writing new studio material enough; more bands should take the initiative and reject and realize they are putting out an inferior product. The material from these sessions complements their first three albums quite nicely, and should be a treat for any death metal fan.

The final CD contains recordings by four bands, most of which only recorded one session. Godflesh is the first band on the disc with one session recorded on August 27th, 1989. The band offers up four tracks, two of which are from the unreleased Tiny Tears EP, and the other two tracks are from Streetcleaner. In a way, Godflesh are the odd man out on this boxset. Their sound is not hardcore derived, nor is it fast, and it always puzzled me why the band was lumped in with the grindcore scene. Despite the fact that Justin Broadrick was one of the more instrumental players in the scene (no doubt his influenced pushed Napalm Death away from their awful peace punk days of the early 80s and into the more heavier sound that they sound perfect on Scum), his music was extremely disconnected from what was going on in the UK at the time. Fall of Because, Head of David and the early Godflesh material takes a cue from the early Swans albums, channeling their slow, harsh, plodding and pounding music. Structurally the music is much more rhymthically driven; instead of being riff oriented, the drums and bass guide the flow of the music.

Streetcleaner is one of my favorite albums of any genre, and easily Godflesh's finest moment. The bass and drums work together to great an extremely oppressive atmosphere, while the guitars provide an extremely noisy and piercing accompanyment, largely feedback driven. The vocals are extremely hoarse shouts, basic and repetitive. Certainly not fun music by any stretch of the imagination, the atmosphere on here is extremely dark and bleak. I'd hesitate to call it metal, but its unquestionably one of the heaviest albums I own. The preceding self-titled album and the unreleased Tiny Tears EP have a much more tame vocal style and the guitar parts are far less adventurous. Unfortunately, this comes across on this Peel session. The Tiny Tears tracks play much like on the record, and the Streetcleaner tracks suffer from somewhat weaker vocals and guitar playing. Even moreso than Carcass, these tracks are completely superfluous, and the listener is better off just listening to Streetcleaner. Not to say that these cuts are bad, but its hard to find any reason to listen to these as opposed to going straight for Streetcleaner. It is quite apparent that the band would have been a massive force live when given more time to work with, and is one of the bands that I wish I was able to see in their prime.

Up next is Unseen Terror, possibly the world's first grindcore supergroup. Sharing members with nearly every other English band (Metal Archive cites Warhammer, Napalm Death, Azagthoth, Defecation, Extreme Noise Terror, and Defecation, to name a few), the band's core consisted of Mitch Dickinson and Shane Embury. This session, recorded on March 22nd, 1988, corrects everything wrong with the band's only LP, Human Error. Human Error was a decent recording, but heavily flawed; the production was thin and trebly, and did not fit the bands sound, vocals were weak, the songs didn't really get moving in the way they should, and there was too much filler. The Peel sessions on the other hand, are a short, precise and fast attack. The guitar sound is massive, and the vocals, courtesy of Mick Harris and Mitch Dickinson are varied and massive. Ranging from overexaggerated crust vocals to the monstrous death growls on "Burned Beyond Recognition" and "Oblivion Descends" (easily their two best songs, and strong contenders for the best songs on the entire box set), the band hardly allows the listener any time to get bored or comfortable with their sound. The band falls more on the hardcore end of things, and end their set with a cover of Sick of it All's "My Life". Its unfortunate the band wasn't able to record a full length on par with this session, but this is hard hitting enough to rank as #2 on the boxset.

Heresy is next with three sessions from July 26th, 1987, March 1st, 1988 and January 10th, 1989. While this band is one of the older and more prominent hardcore bands on here, they are probably the band I am least familiar with. Mileage varies a lot with this band's sound; the first session is borderline unlistenable, taking a wacky thrash/shorts metal approach to hardcore. Influenced by some of the older US hardcore bands as opposed to the UK crust scene, this session begins with the tedious "Flowers (In Concrete)", which incorporates a groaner rap part at the end of it. The second and third Peel sessions show the band getting heavier, faster, and less goofy, but still don't really capture my attention for very long. I've seen some live footage of the band sometime in the late 80s which was absolutely devastating, but unfortunately the band don't come anywhere near that level of intensity here, and are the weakest band on the set.

Last up is Intense Degree, with one session recorded on February 28th, 1988. Another hardcore band, Intense Degree's only LP "War In My Head" is a great record; fast, tight and furious hardcore. This peel session was recorded before the LP, and shows the band not yet honed in on their sound. The performance is sloppy and slow, which greatly hurts the band. One of the drawing points for the LP is its blinding speed, and the band sounds like they are fumbling around. The wacky thrash/shorts metal vibe is also much stronger on here than on the LP, and has a tendency to bring the songs down even further. This session gets a bad rap by a lot of people, and while its certainly not terrible, its hardly what I would call excellent. I'm not sure whether it was Earache's conscious decision to place the weakest two sessions at the very end, but it seemed to work out that way. Don't write the band off from this session and skip directly to "War In My Head".

As comprehensive as this boxset is, I must mention two complementary materials to this, the Hard and Heavy Grindcore special VHS, and the recent book "Trapped in a Scene" by Ian Glasper. The Hard and Heavy Grindcore tape (reissued on DVD under some alternate title) features interviews with Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Godflesh and Carcass, in addition to a good portion of the early Earache roster. Hard and Heavy was largely a glam/poser metal video magazine, but this tape and their thrash metal special from a few years earlier are both mandatory purchases. The Glasper book is an extremely comprehensive text covering the UK hardcore scene from 1985-1989, featuring interviews, discographies (both for bands and labels) and loads of pictures. Metalheads who have purchased the "Swedish Death Metal" book by Daniel Ekeroth can expect the same kind of high quality writing, understanding and depth. Likeminded maniacs who are impressed and intrigued by the music presented on this boxset are highly encouraged to dig deeper, and these two items provide the perfect gateway. To say that this purchase is mandatory is a bit of an understatement. Priced at around $15, its an absolute steal. The liner notes are quite extensive and for the most part the music is top notch, and the comprehensive coverage of a wide range of bands gives an excellent overview of one of the most influential, important and interesting scenes both in the realm of metal and hardcore.

Afflicted Convulsion - "Beyond Redemption" (Swe)

2010-03-02T21:19:00.001-05:00

Sweden had one of the most prominent and best death metal scenes in the late 80s and early 90s. While a little slow to start off, it seems that after Nihilist released their seminal demos in 1988 and 1989, literally dozens of bands popped up all across the country in the next couple years. The sheer amount of bands trying to recapture the Nihilist/Entombed sound certainly put some people off; when I started getting into this kind of music in the mid 1990s, the black metal backlash was still in full swing. Many reviews from this time referred to albums like Darkthrone's "Soulside Journey" as being trendy garbage, death metal as life affirming hippie music, and black metal as being an true uncompromising anti-trend music. Its interesting how this mentality in itself forms a trend, evidenced by the extremely fast stagnation of the black metal genre in the late 90s, going from what was a very vibrant and promising scene with landmark releases across the globe to a large parody of itself in less than half a decade's time.

Coming back to Sweden, while a mass amount of death metal bands formed there in the late 80s, not all of them went for the Entombed buzzsaw guitar and riff heavy approach. Afflicted Convulsion in particular played a form of very heavy and detuned death metal that in approach almost bears similarities to contemporary grindcore works; their second demo was called "Psychadelic Grindcore", and while this rather tongue-in-cheek title hints at the bands sense of humor (possibilty in addition to the cool three dimensional "Afflicted" in the logo juxtaposed on top of the more death metal font "Convulsion"), it at least gives a good glimpse into where they band was coming from at this point in time.

The "Beyond Redemption" demo, their third, reprises most of the tracks from the "Psychadelic Grindcore" demo and while it doesn't have any jamming or pointless meandering like the "psychadelic" aspect would imply, what it does have is a cavernous wall of sound production that is intensely heavy. Much cleaner, tighter and heavier than the previous demo, this type of music bears a strong similarity to what Grave or Carnage were doing at the time, and considering the classic status of the early works of these two, this is certainly not a bad thing. The music tends to be rather fast-paced, occasionally breaking into more mid-tempo sections, vocals are low-pitched growls that are rather flat and basic, but enough to do the job. The song titles in particular are rather strange, particular "Utilization", which hint at an odd sense of humor on the band's part which tended to be prevalent in these acts.

This demo is a nearly flawless piece of heavy Swedish death metal, favoring a massive steamroller approach rather than a more visceral and raw attack on the listener. After this demo the band would drop the word "Convulsion" from their band name and released a couple of albums under the name of "Afflicted". These albums I found to be a huge disappointment, especially compared to how awesome this demo is. Over time I grew to appreciate their first LP, "Prodigal Sun" a little more on its own terms, but the "Beyond Redemption" demo simply remains one of the best recordings to come out of the early Swedish death metal scene, and easily blows away anything the band has done since.

Siekiera - 1984 demo (Pol)

2010-03-02T21:17:00.001-05:00

The Soviet Bloc produced quite an interesting amount of music during the 1980s. Before Glastnost in the late 1980s, punk, and to a somewhat lesser degree, metal, was very much an underground phenomenon. As bands had to have their material approved by the government censors who controlled the state run record industries, a majority of the more fringe bands who professed extreme views had little chance of releasing anything on vinyl in their own country. A direct result of this was the prevalent use of cassette as the medium of choice for releases. Tapes could be made and duplicated quickly and cheaply by the band members without having to worry about government intervention. Despite this fact, the government would often crack down on punk bands, resulting in many cancelled gigs and band members being detained.

Poland is the country in the Soviet Bloc which probably had the largest scenes in punk and metal. Being second only to the USSR in terms of population and size, its clear to see why so many great bands came from here. By the late 80s the country had enormous metal and punk scenes which could easily hold their own with the rest of the world. Siekiera were one of the first bands to play hardcore in Poland. Their sound, like their name (meaning "Axe") , was an extremely primitive form of stripped down hardcore, harsh, raw and uncompromising.

The demo they recorded in 1984 remains their masterpiece. Even the production is extremely primitive and low-fi; in the right channel you have guitars and drums and in the left channel you have bass and vocals. The whole atmosphere of this recording is completely dead and lifeless. This isn't a fun recording by any stretch of the imagination, just very stark, bleak and cold sounding music. While it has nothing musically in common with albums like Godflesh's "Streetcleaner", Ildjarn's "Forest Poetry" or Swans' "Cop", this demo manages to evoke similar brooding imagery. Structurally this is almost as basic as its production, simplistic hardcore songs using little more than two or three riffs per song, often mid-tempo and plodding. Much like early Amebix, the drumming has a tendency to be rhythmically angular, giving the music an almost post-punk feel at times. Vocals are very hoarse, gruff and low-pitched shouts in Polish; the Slavic language group is far more harsh sounding than English and the Polish language suits this type of music perfectly. It seems the band has channeled the agony of Poland being partitioned by Russia over centuries, being devastated during two World Wars and then having been dragged into being a satellite state of the Soviet Union into fifteen hardcore songs.

The 1984 demo has been reissued and bootlegged a number of times, and should be fairly easy to locate. After this recording the band would contribute two tracks to the Fala compilation LP (the title track of which has a beeping out of some lyrics by the censors). Strangely enough, the band decided to completely switch musical directions in 1985 with the "Jest Bezpiecznie" 7" and the 1986 follow up "Nowa Aleksandria" LP, which have more in common with Ministry's "Twitch" and Sisters of Mercy's "Floodland" than the early hardcore recordings. This stuff is good in its own right, but the demo remains the bleakest hardcore recording I've heard, and easily my favorite hardcore to come out of Eastern Europe.

W.A.I.L. - "Wisdom through Agony into Illumination and Lunacy" (Fin)

2010-02-16T19:42:00.001-05:00

I have been a little slow in checking out new releases. While I feel that damning modern heavy metal bands as inferior, generic and imitators is a sign of laziness, there is no doubt that it is easier to navigate metal's older eras. For example, according to metal-archives, 11907 releases came out in 2009, which is more than five times the amount released in 1989, 2480. Even if we assume right off the bat that only 5% of modern releases are at least 'good', the numbers indicate that there are at least 595 'good' records that came out in 2009. The problem of getting to them is wading through the 11400 releases that are 'bad', which can be an extremely tedious task. Actively scouring and doing deep genre digging within the 80s and 90s death metal scenes can also be tedious, but will immediately yield better results simply due to the lack of information overload. Out of the 2480 releases in 1989, there are obviously more than 5% (124) 'good' relases. Sticking with this era is essentially playing it safe, as there is little to no chance of encountering releases influenced by metalcore, mallcore, gothic rock, math rock, indie rock, emo, and whatever other undesireable elements may be present in today's bands. While being lazy can have its many perks due to avoiding these kind of bands altogether, it can be even more rewarding discovering a truly great recording from the present.

WAIL are the most promising band I've heard in a long time. I may have spoken too soon in the Barathrum review I wrote a few months ago, as it seems that the spirit of murky black/doom is quite alive within the grooves of this record. "Wisdom through Agony into Illumination and Lunacy" (in a sense a self-titled release, as the band's name is an acronym for this phrase) is the band's first, and currently only, full length. The band released demos in 2007 and 2009, the latter contains two tracks from this LP. Due to the track lengths, the former is presumably in the same style; lengthy, drawn out, slower paced metal that straddles the line between black and death. While this LP can be considered black/doom, it doesn't really sound much like Barathrum. Instead of using Barathrum's rhythmic and bass driven approach, the phrasing on this record is far more epic in scope. The melodic riffing bears a lot of similiarity to countrymen Hail; in fact, were the bands not from far apart cities, I would have figured that the two bands shared members.

Hail's "Inheritance of Evilness", while a definite modern classic, is a very sparse and loose album. WAIL's approach to the same blend of blackened doom is a little different. The production on this recording is very well done and professional sounding; the producer did an excellent job here in capturing the band's sound. Without trying to make the record sound flat and sterile (like so many modern production jobs), the record sounds very warm and organic. The guitars have a good mid-ranged sound to them and everything is mixed clearly. The performance is quite tight, and while the band lacks a raw, energetic sound, those particular aspects are not really needed for this type of slower music. Orchestration and arrangement is also fairly dense. The drums are quite busy, and frequently supplement the slower riffing with well placed fills. Taking a cue from some of the funeral doom acts, WAIL incorporate a number of subtle atmospheric touches in their music - clean vocal chants, piano, and strings. These accompaniments are not overdone (unlike many synth black metal bands that have the keyboards on full blast the entire time) and add a great deal to the music. At times, WAIL's approach in this regard reminds me of some of the more experimental parts of the dISEMBOWELMENT full length.

As previously mentioned, phrasing on the album is quite long and the songs quite are drawn out. Aside from the brief intro, the shortest track on this album is 9:43. Fortunately, the band has an excellent sense of composition; riffs flow into each other seamlessly, linked by excellent and engaging percussion, well placed and tasteful soloing, and strong, melodic leads. This type of slower black/death metal is often minimalistic due to the slower tempos, but WAIL manage to incorporate a more intricately structured arrangement in their songs without sounding wanky and without sacrificing the dark and murky atmosphere.

Records like this don't come along very often, and its a great surprise to blindly hear a new release of this high quality. "Wisdom through Agony into Illumination and Lunacy" quite easily makes my album of the year for 2009, and the band shows a great deal of promise for future releases. While they are clearly influenced by the likes of Hail, Samael, and Varathron, they have their own unique take on the sound, and at no point during this recording does it sound derivative or uninspired. Currently this album is only available on vinyl, and a CD issue is likely to happen in the future. The artwork is quite nice though, so I would personally recommend sticking with the LP; high shipping prices that may be incurred out of Europe are completely worth it. Don't pass this one up, this is a mandatory album for fans of cult black/doom.

Nuclear Death - "For our Dead/All Creatures Great and Eaten" (USA)

2010-02-15T14:22:00.005-05:00

For some odd reason, sketchy businessmen and rip-off artists have set themselves up in the underground metal scene. As absurd the idea that someone would make enough money off of death metal to put forth the effort into scamming people is, it seems directly contrarian to the DIY nature of underground music to begin with. Nevertheless, numerous sketchy labels have popped up who have treated bands less than fairly. Wild Rags, despite their stellar roster, has a reputation for being amongst the worst of these labels. With the roster containing the likes of Impetigo, Hellwitch, Blasphemy, and Order from Chaos, the label certainly had enough good bands to support itself without resorting to shady business tactics.

Nuclear Death were arguably the finest band to grace Wild Rags with their presence. With their first demo released in 1986, "Wake Me When I'm Dead", they were arguably the first female fronted death metal band, led by bassist/vocalist Lori Bravo. With subsequent demos throughout the 80s, especially on "Welcome to the Minds of the Morbid" and "Vultures Feeding", the band progressed from their rather basic approach to death metal to a much heavier and filthier sounding grindcore band. "Bride of Insect" and "Carrion for Worm", the bands two LPs for Wild Rags showcased the band's talent for churning out this style of music. Many of the demo tracks are reprised on these LPs, and in a much better and darker form. "For Our Dead", Nuclear Death's final release on Wild Rags, and the self-released cassette-only album "All Creatures Great and Eaten" both followed in 1992, both taking the bands sound in a different direction.

"For our Dead" and "All Creatures Great and Eaten" (these will be referred to as the '92 recordings' for future brevity's sake) are arguably the band's finest works. On these two recordings they take the basic lo-fi grindcore formula laid down on the prior two LPs and morph the sound into something far more sinister and eerie. While the band retains bursts of blastbeats, for the most part the '92 recordings take on a much slower tempo. Percussion is at times very rhythmic and angular, often punctuating the music in an odd and off-kilter way. The guitars sound like they are barely tuned and have a very dischordant buzzing tone to them. This combined the awkwardly lurching guitar riffs produce a very strange and disturbing atmosphere, that is both unique and often far darker than many other death metal releases from the same time period.

Lori's vocal performance on the 92 recordings is very underrated. She was a very dynamic vocalist, and had quite a bit of range, often times going from a very deep low growl, to an ear piercing high pitched shriek in the same phrase. She has the ability to use her voice very forcefully, which is a most welcome change from some of the rather stale death metal vocalists that take a monotone approach. Often times a clean vocal track will be overdubbed with some of Lori's screaming, further adding to the album's odd atmosphere. The lyrics are also jarring an uncomfortable. While I normally don't pay attention to lyrics in death metal bands, Nuclear Death's go above and beyond. The usual bad taste and gore is transcended by filthy tales of murder, rape and torture, and while on paper this might seem like the norm, the way with words is far more perverse and sadistic than most.

In addition to their stellar performances, the '92 recordings all feature excellent artwork. "Bride of Insect" and "Carrion for Worm" are notorious for having bad artwork; Phil's drawing style at this point was rather amateurish, but was still effective in displaying crude and grotesque images. The cover of "For our Dead", while still incorporating elements of crudely drawn figures, is much more intricate, and works for better in being an accurately portrayal of the music. The booklet in the CD reissue of the '92 recordings also contains many of Lori's sketches from the time, which show her becoming quite a competant artist.

Obtaining these recordings shouldn't be too difficult of a task. Original "For our Dead" 7"s tend to fetch around $35. I haven't seen an original tape of "All Creatures Great and Eaten", but considering the price of "For our Dead" and the two LPs (which go around for $40 - $50), I'd imagine one shouldn't be too pricey. The recordings have also been reissued on CD and vinyl. The CD was done by Extremist records, and while they did a much better job with the layout than on their "Bride of Insect/Carrion for Worm" CD, the cover is extremely sparse and uninspired. This is corrected by the vinyl reissue on Displeased. Both the CD and vinyl reissues should be fairly easy to find.

After the '92 recordings, Lori kept the Nuclear Death name going, releasing "The Planet Cachexial" in 1999 and "Harmony Drinks of Me" in 2000. "The Planet Cachexial" is an interesting listen; it is a completely ambient record and contains no metal elements at all. The songs seem like half-finished pieces, and not full entities, and it is difficult to listen to in its entirety. "Harmony Drinks of Me" on the other hand, is a stab at gothic rock, and misses completely. This album is mostly unlistenable, and is difficult to make it through the first track. Despite the fact that Nuclear Death's ventures into non-metal are not particularly great, it does not by any means tarnish the reputation of the band's prior activity. Nearly everything they've released up this point is great, and culminates with the 1992 recordings. The early demos and the first two LPs were good, but the band always seemed to be improving throughout their career, and their artistic vision really culminates with the '92 recordings.

Reencarnación - "888" (Col)

2010-02-15T14:21:00.000-05:00

In case any fans of raw death metal were wondering, becoming a librarian requires going to graduate school in which you enroll in many courses that teach you useless theory that has very little to do with the practice of librarianship. One of the first courses that I took, "Human Information Behavior", a group of people in my class did a presentation on the information needs of "outsiders" vs "insiders". For about 45 minutes these individuals talked about the theoretical ins and outs of exactly what an "outsider" is - this term for this purpose was defined as someone who is a part of a 'scene' (for lack of better word) tangentially on the outside and do not have easy access to the same kind of information the members of that 'scene' have. While this definition is rather vague and a little convoluted, it becomes a little easier to see what exactly this is meant when one looks at outsider art or, in particular, outsider music. Outsider art, which outsider music is naturally a subsection of, is any art created by an artist who generally is unaware of any trends and thus any kind of outside influence in their music, whether by choice or not. This generally leads to very strange works, often produced by mentally ill people such as Henry Darger or Wesley Willis.

Its difficult to place exactly where the Colombian metal scene fits into all this. In particular, bands like Parabellum and Reencarnación played a type of music which not only does not resemble anything else coming out of South America, but really nothing that I've heard before. The line between insanity and genius is often fine, and its hard to tell retroactively on what side either band fell on. Trying to label this as a brilliant piece of outsider art, a breathtaking and conceptually complex piece of high art, or just a bunch of talentless kids trying and failing miserably to emulate their Motorhead LPs is a futile attempt, and this sort of music can only be judged on its own terms.

A lot of outsider music due to its strange and often quite literally retarded sounds can produce a great deal of unintentionally hilarious songs. This was my first reaction to hearing "888". I had never heard music this insane before and burst out laughing when the band kicked into high speed in the opening title track. Its hard to describe exactly what this band sounds like. Structurally they play a rather limited range of riffs, generally only 3 - 4 per song at most, almost no soloing, and vocals are delivered in a gruff yet intelligible fashion. However the riffs themselves don't really sound like much of any type of discernable riffs. They have much more in common to the harsh noise anti-music stylings of early Beherit than anything else that was present in the metal scene at the time. The guitars sound horribly out of tune and the guitarist sounds like he is just running his fingers up and down the frets in a seemingly random pattern that is repeated in a riff form. The bass is largely unconcerned with what the guitar player is doing and is playing something else, the drummer is barely keeping the whole show together with a series of sloppy rhythms that would make early Sodom proud, and the Spanish language vocals are spit out at such a rapid pace that initially it sounds like the singer is having some kind of anxiety attack.

Any sort of influence in this music is hard to trace. South America, especially Brazil, had a very strong metal scene known for its raw death metal, but as harsh as those bands were, at least they had some semblance of song structure, riffing, and were clearly influenced by the heavier speed/thrash metal bands of the time. Brazil also had a rather large hardcore scene in the early 80s, but Reencarnación sounds like neither. Instead this sounds like a mismatch of sounds randomly pasted together. The whole recording feels very musically "wrong". If there was some kind of handbook that instructed you how to write a proper heavy metal song (ala the KLF), it seems that Reencarnación studied the handbook very carefully and decided to do the exact opposide. The band employs a few noise tracks, out of tune violins, and some truly mindblowing break down parts that sound like nothing a sane human being would write. To further add to the mystery, their countrymen Parabellum, who were producing equally insane and strange music, sounded nothing like this either.

I realize everything I've written so far sounds like it could easily be a negative review, but its not. I absolutely love this band, and this album is easily the best thing they've done. "888" is such a frantic and crazy recording, after the initial shock wore off, the recording clicked very heavily with me and certainly is amongst the best metal albums to come out of South America. Its difficult to call this death metal or black metal, but probably would not be incorrect to say that it falls in some nebulous hole in between the two.

This band has built up such a cult following that "888" has been reissued several times on both CD and vinyl, with the following EP "Acompáñame A La Tumba", another fantastic recording that is slightly thicker sounding and has some of the best cover art to grace any heavy metal 7". For the uninitiated, expecting a rather standard South American black metal recording like "I.N.R.I." or "Bestial Devastation" might be disappointed, but those open to more esoteric forms of death metal should love this. I really can't recommend this recording enough, this is one of those rare gems that encompasses the true essence of what makes being a fan of this kind of music worthwhile.

Armoured Angel - "Communion" (Aus)

2010-02-15T14:20:00.000-05:00

The Australian metal scene, especially in the mid-late 80s was a rather small but strong group of bands. The death and thrash metal scenes started rather early with excellent bands like Slaughter Lord and Sadistik Exekeution cutting a few influential demos in 1986 and 1987. Armoured Angel, while predating both bands, started off as a fairly straight forward speed metal band. Their first cult demo, "Baptized in Blood" came in 1985, and for the rest of the decade the band was largely silent. In the four year span between "Baptized in Blood", and their second demo, "Wings of Death", the band changed some members and took on a more death metal approach. Though a far cry from the insanity that bands like Martire and Sadistik Exekution were doing around the time, "Wings of Death" was a very raw and nasty piece of death metal that would have fit in nicely with the American first wave.

"Communion", the bands third demo, is very much in the same style as "Wings of Death". Rather basically structured death metal, but with a huge emphasis on the riffing. These songs are extremely well written and catchy, and have a similar, almost rockish, approach to riffing style that bears some similarities to albums like Slaughter's "Strappado" or Celtic Frost's "Morbid Tales". These riffs are eccentuated by simplistic, yet well timed percussion. The drummer knows which objects to hit at the right times and in particular does some excellent cymbal work which greatly livens the pace of the demo. In the time between this recording and "Wings of Death" the band had musically tightened up a lot; even though the two recordings aren't very dissimilar in terms of style and approach, "Communion" is a much more focused and tighter assault and for this style of music works much better than "Wings of Death". Vocals are delivered in a manner that isn't exactly a harsh death metal growl, but neither is cleanly sung, instead falling somewhere in between. I get the feeling if Lemmy were more into death metal and had a thick Australian accent, he might sound somewhat like this.

The band's sound would tighten up even more for the following releases, and while aesthetically they became much heavier, they lost some of the energy present on this recording. While "Communion" is a lot tighter than "Wings of Death", it still retains somewhat of a feeling of musical looseness and youthful energy. Not to say that the later material is bad, far from it in fact, but this remains my favorite recording by them and one of the best recordings to come out of Australia.

Due to the nice balance of a somewhat rawer sound and more focused musicianship, this should appeal to both fans of raw death metal and the more polished bands that were becoming popular at the time. The flow and composition is excellent, and when I first heard this recording, the four songs on here couldn't leave my head for days, thick Australian accent and all. From what I can understand, there is some conflict between the members of the band that played on the "Wings of Death" and "Communion" demos and the two following EPs, so it is unlikely that this material will ever see a legitimate reissue on CD or vinyl, which is disappointing considering how good it is. Highly recommended.

Morbid Scream - "The Signal to Attack" (USA)

2010-01-30T18:54:00.008-05:00

Retrospective CD anthologies can tend to be a mixed bag. While often times it is nice to have all of the material of one band in one convinient location, sometimes when a band has one definitive work, it can often interrupt the flow of the album. As most bands can have varied discographies, sometimes it is better to take each work in as its own separate entity and analyze it that way, rather than just lumping the entire thing together as one disc. Theres also the issue of track layout - should it go by quality (often times subjective), or by chronological order, sometimes leaving weaker tracks first on the disc, with the real meat lying around at the end. There is also the issue of filler material; with compact discs allowing up to almost 80 minutes of music, the decision to include inferior sounding live tracks can be tempting to boost run time, allowing the listener to get their money's worth. Decisions like this, especially when it comes to putting out a definitive reissue for a band makes me glad that I'm more of an armchair critic as opposed to someone who runs a real record label.

Morbid Scream's "The Signal to Attack" anthology is a nice little package including all the recorded works of one of the most underrated Texan metal bands. The band was active for a short time in the late 80s, released two demos under the name Morbid Scream, changed their name to The Morbid, released one demo under that moniker and vanished off the face of the Earth. "The Signal to Attack" includes both demos as Morbid Scream, an unreleased studio track, and three live sets.

Musically the band was top notch. They played in the gray area between death metal and thrash which was occupied by other bands from their time period such as Demolition Hammer and Prime Evil. The guitar sound is extremely heavy, and the music fast faced and less "listener-friendly" than a lot of the more popular contemporary thrash acts. As the band seems largely unconcerned with correcting social issues, and seems more interested in base topics such as violence and killing, its no surprise that their music comes off as a lot more aggressive and violent, something that the thrash scene started to really lack by the tail end of the 80s. Morbid Scream manages to avoid other pitfalls of contemporary thrash by making the excellent decision of omitting tedious mosh parts. Demolition Hammer was a very mosh-heavy band, and Morbid Scream sounds a lot like what that New York act would have come up with if they had just stuck to the speedy parts and didn't bother with getting people moving in the pit.

The recording quality of the studio demos is quite good. If not due to their length and reletive obscurity, one would be hard pressed to differentiate between them and a proper full length. Whoever recorded the band in the studio clearly knew what they were doing, as they were able to accurately capture the band's heavy sound without adding an overproduced sheen. There isn't much in the way of technical riffing found on these demos, but the guitars come at the listener fast and furious, and the band is extremely competant and focused. This is one of the few recordings I've heard where the band plays extremely tight, and yet sounds extremely energetic. The over the top, almost theatrical vocals add slightly to the band's youthful energy factor. The exaggerated style reminds me slightly of what Nasty Ronnie might be doing if he were in a death/thrash band instead of Nasty Savage. At times the vocals can sound almost cartoonish, but they give the band a special charm and a unique sound that differentiates them from the rest of the pack.

For unknown reasons, the demo as The Morbid was not included in here. While it is slightly musical different and takes a more rhythm and angular approach, as opposed to the more straight forward steamroller assault of the Morbid Scream demos, it still has quite a few good moments and certainly worth of inclusion on here. This demo's omission is one of the problems with this anthology CD. The studio demos are great, and work very well in the anthology format as they are pretty much exactly the same, both in production, execution and style. The unreleased studio track, "Tragic Memories" has more 'traditional' sounding thrash vocals, but other than that, it still sounds like the same band. As none of these recordings stand head and shoulders above the other, it makes sense to list these in anthology format as opposed to taking them apart as separate entities.

The live tracks tacked onto the end are somewhat varying in quality. The first set, from 11/11/87, is probably the only one which really merits inclusion. This is presumably one of the earlier shows that the band played, as none of the songs on here appear on the studio demos, and its reasonable to assume that they are among the first songs that the band wrote. A few of the riffs here and there sound a little similar to some of the studio tracks, so its also reasonable to assume that parts of these songs were cannibalized to create the final result on the demos. The other two live sets, from 6/3/88 and 10/28/88 are largely unnecessary, and with the exception of the track "To the Gallows", are of songs included on the studio demos. While the sound quality on the live tracks isn't terrible, its not particularly good either. The band clearly gives an energetic performance, but it doesn't really translate well to CD, and the in between song banter doesn't leap out at the listener as being extrordinarily entertaining. I would have loved to have seen this band in their prime, but the tracks on here don't really convey that experience particularlly well. The final live sets could have easily been omitted in favor of The Morbid demo, or to fit on one LP.

Another issue I have with this CD is the layout. Its extremely sparse, and contains very little information aside from tracklistings and dates. Proscriptor Mcgovern was a big fan of this band and had his hand in putting this together, and honestly, with such a big name involved, its surprising they couldn't have done a better job. The only band photos are monochromatic, but it would have been nice to see some of them, some more extensive liner notes, lyrics, possible zine scans, etc. These may sound like minor issues, but when putting together what is probably going to be the only Morbid Scream reissue, its a shame that this sort of thing wasn't made available.

Putting all layout and tracklist issues aside, this is a great compilation of one of the heavier thrash bands. This should still be readily available, so hunting it down shouldn't be too much of a chore, and its certainly well worth the effort. The music contained on here is some of the finest made of the genre, and any fan of real thrash metal needs to hear this. If some of the limp CNN-thrash bands from the late 80s had taken a cue from these guys, wading through that graveyard of a scene wouldn't be so much of a chore. As it stands, Morbid Scream stood far above most. Their demos were fantastic and they absolutely deserve all the praise they can get.

Rottrevore - "Copulation Of The Virtuous And Vicious" (USA)

2010-01-30T18:54:00.003-05:00

Its hard to imagine nowadays that Relapse Records was once a good label. Releasing a string of excellent death metal and grindcore 7"s in the early 90s, Relapse proved to be one of the best labels for extreme metal along with Century Media, Nuclear Blast and Earache. In the first 20 Relapse releases, the band released material by Incantation, Monstrosity, Repulsion, Destroy, Deceased and Amorphis. Compared with only ten years down the road, it seems almost unfathomable that a label would decline so far. Their roster now is a joke and shows that the label prioritizes trend hopping and maximizing their profits in what is supposed to be an underground scene devoted to playing honest music that is anything but trendy. The fellow aforementioned record labels also went the same route, and proved that not even death metal is exempt from the presence of business in the music "industry".

With that slight aside, Rottrevore's "Copulation Of The Virtuous And Vicious" was one of Relapses' first releases, clocking in at #10. Reprising one track off of the classic "The Epitome of Pantaglia" demo, this 7" is four monstrous tracks of extremely heavy death metal. The second wave of death metal is marked by lots of downtuning; low, gutteral vocals, extremely heavy and cavernous guitar sounds, and this 7" is no exception. The sound here is absolutely massive, visceral and absolutely flooring, and the band goes back and forth between faster, almost grindcore speeds, and slow dirging riffs, almost reminiscent of the first Incantation album. This isn't quite the "riff-salad" type of death metal which would become popular a few years later, but is far more complex than the basic straight forward three chord/three riff songs that characterized the first wave of death metal. The result is an unrelenting, pummelling recording which can easily hold its own with the rest of the Relapse catalog at the time - certainly not an easy feat.

After this 7", Rottrevore released another excellent 7", "Fornication in Delirum", and a full length, "Iniquitous", which reprised many of the tracks from the 7"s and the demo. While I personally would give the edge slightly to the non-LP material, all of the Rottrevore material is outstanding and deserves to be tracked down. The non-LP material has been reissued several times; the Relapse 7" appears on the Relapse Singles Series, volume 3 CD, a rather poor sounding bootleg which contains the 7"s, the demo and some live tracks (my introduction to the band), and the best option - Necroharmonic's reissue "Disembodied" which contains the 7"s, the demo, and two compilation tracks from the "Son of Bllleeeeaaauuuurrrrgghhh!" 7" and "Pantalgia" LP. The original 7" on Relapse fetches about $10 - 15, and can still be easily found.

Shortly after this recording, Relapse, Nuclear Blast, Century Media and Earache all went down the drain. The ultra-heavy style of death metal eventually became a parody of itself when bands started turning into Suffocation clones, lbut for the first few years of the 1990s the style yielded some truly excellent recordings and bands, Rottrevore being one of the best.

Necromancy - "Cremation" (USA)

2010-01-30T18:54:00.001-05:00

By 1986, the United States death metal scene had started to take a definite shape. In the two years after Possessed's landmark "Death Metal" demo, over 100 death metal recordings had come from the United States alone. While this volume is relatively high, the style was still firmly cemented in the underground; many of these early death metal bands had only released demos, a handful released 7"s and only a select few released LPs. Thrash was barely catching the attention of mainstream metal media, and the death metal bands were making waves only in the eyes of tape traders and fanzines run by people that had the "right" idea of this kind of music. With all these factors considered, its not that difficult to see how some bands would get lost in the shuffle, especially a band like Necromancy who was only active during the period of one year.

Also known as Necromansy, "Cremation" is their second demo and shows a vast improvement over their first output. While their first demo, also from 1986, was fairly decent, it suffered from slightly poor production, unfocused playing, and weak vocals. In many cases I don't mind a rawer production and loose playing, but the band's performance on this demo was more indicative of a young band trying to find their sound as opposed to a group of maniacs channeling wild and untamed raw energy.

Containing three songs, "Cremation" reprises one song from the first demo ("Submit to Torture", arguably their best song), as well as two others. Musically this straddles the line between first wave death metal and the heavier thrash at the time. Like many of the other death metal demos from this period, it doesn't have a clear edge which firmly pushes it into one genre or the other, but instead encompasses both at the same time. This isn't particularly complex music, but contains rather smart songwriting; the band has a good sense of flow and doesn't rely on repeating riffs for longer than they are welcome. Vocals are somewhat atypical for the music of the time, as they come in the form of hoarse shouts as opposed to growling or a raspy snarl. The production is clean and heavy and compliments the vocals quite well; fans of heavier thrash bands like Demolition Hammer or Prime Evil would probably find a lot of similarities here.

The only real problem with this demo is its length. The three songs on here are excellent yet short, and merely whet the listener's appetite. Necromancy show an enormous amount of potential on this recording and its a shame that they didn't get a chance to record more material. As it stands, this is a great yet brief document of American death/thrash. The delivery and atmosphere of the music isn't nearly as dark or evil as some of their contemporaries, but anyone looking for catchy and heavy music will not be disappointed with the three tracks contained within this demo.

Bitch - "Damnation Alley" (USA)

2010-01-15T14:51:00.001-05:00

Few record labels have done more for heavy metal than Metal Blade. Despite the fact that they are pretty much total garbage these days, there is no denying the influence and taste that Brian Slagel displayed in the early 80s. Introducing the world to bands like Metallica and Slayer is no small feat, and the label's roster up until around the late 80s or so showed a real mark of quality. The highly influential Metal Massacre compilation, released in 1982, featured several local promising artists. Metallica is obviously the biggest band out of the ones featured, but in those early days, Cirith Ungol and Bitch were both able to match their energy and enthusiasm, if not overall quality.

"Damnation Alley" was the first Metal Blade release following Metal Massacre, and certainly one of Metal Blade's most enjoyable releases. When dealing with a roster that includes the likes of "Show No Mercy", "Apocalyptic Raids", "In the Sign of Evil", etc, its would be erroneous to pretend that "Damnation Alley" is on the top shelf of Metal Blade releases, but that certainly doesn't detract from its power and sheer fun. Bitch were a pretty gimmicky band, and the cover certainly doesn't pull any punches. A rather large closeup of presumably what are singer Betsy's tits give the listener a pretty good picture of what they are in for - sexually charged female fronted heavy metal.

Taking a cue from the lack of subtlety in the cover, the music itself is a treat of straight foward, pure heavy metal. Too many US metal bands from the early 80s got caught in the competition of fretboard gymnastics (see the mostly awful first volume of Shrapnel Records' "US Metal" compilation series for a prime example of this), whereas Bitch keeps the music plain and simple. Not getting bogged down in tedious attempts to show off flashy guitar leads and overly complicated riffs gives the band a lot more power than some of their contemporaries.

Perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the 12", the almost speed metal opener "Saturdays" highlights all the best points of the band; a raw, crunchy guitar tone, energetic performance, over the top lyrics about S&M, and Betsy's confident vocal delivery. While by no means a great technical singer, Betsy's voice fits the music on this 12" quite nicely. She doesn't have a squeaky clean pop voice like many other female metal singers, nor is she forceful in the way that Detente or Sacrilege were. Instead she has a very competetant voice with the right amount of grit in her throat to sound like she really means business. Since her "business" demonstrated on the lyrics is whipping submissive men, it takes the right amount of personality and confidence to communicate that to the listener, of which she is more than capable of doing.

Despite "Damnation Alley"'s rather short run time (a little over 20 minutes), the music is somewhat varied. Song order alternates between speedy ragers (the odd numbered tracks) and somewhat lighter, almost hard rock in tone numbers (the evens). "Never Come Home" and "He's Gone" (the lighter numbered tracks) aren't nearly as powerful as the other tracks on the album, but are still well written and entertaining, especially due to the lyrical content. The other three tracks are extremely hard hitting - the aforementioned speed metal opener "Saturdays", the dark and brooding title track, and a re-working of "Live for the Whip" from the Metal Massacre 1 compilation, complete with really fake sounding whipping sounds and Betsy's moaning. Certainly a fine way to close out the EP.

Bitch followed this EP with the LP "Be My Slave", which has a much thicker and heavier guitar tone, but for the most part is in the same musical vein as "Damnation Alley". I like "Be My Slave" a lot, but its longer length tends to drag in places, while "Damnation Alley"'s short running time adds to its effectiveness; it delivers its punches quickly and then is over. The material following "Be My Slave" isn't worth listening to, and is quite often found clogging up the dollar bins in your favorite record store. "Be My Slave" and "Damnation Alley" have both been reissued together on CD, and the original vinyl can be found for a handful of dollars. A lot of people write this band off as being too jokey, gimmicky, and a novelty act, and while the S&M stage presence and lyrical content can be seen as such, the band managed to write some great songs in the early portion of their career. Fans of straight forward heavy metal done in the American fashion should find plenty to enjoy here.

Silent Death - "Before the Sunrise" (Mys)

2010-01-15T14:49:00.001-05:00

Malaysia had a rather interesting death metal scene in the early 1990s. Much like their neighbors Singapore, Malaysia had a rather oppressive government which is notorious for its harsh penalties for minor offenses. With that said, its rather odd how the metal scene evolved in Malaysia; the early to mid-1980s saw a fair amount of activity in the form of hard rock/traditional heavy metal, and by the late 80s the underground scene skipped over the evolutionary thrash step and went straight to playing extremely raw black and death metal. Aside from the obvious influences of the bands playing in this style in the area (Singapore, Japan), the Malaysian bands seemingly took influences from whatever records they could get their hands on. In an interview with Silent Death from the early 1990s, the band cites a list of their favorite albums, which were rather ecclectic to say the least; I don't think I've ever met anyone who would admit to liking Destruction's "Cracked Brain", nevermind calling it one of their favorite albums or biggest influences. Malaysia is one of those countries who are notorious for record scammers, both inside the post office and out, and likely as a result a much smaller fraction of metal records hit Malaysian shores than the ones which could easily be found in America or Europe. This interview, reprinted in the reissue of the demo and singles compilation "Harbinger of Devastation", goes on to namecheck essentially the entire Southeast Asian death metal scene, which shows an unsurprisingly strong knit underground community in an area of the world where this sort of music was most likely very frowned upon by the authorities.

The Malaysian scene by the early 90s had developed rather quickly beyond its primitive beginnings. A number of foundational bands were releasing very raw, simple and sloppy demos in 1990, but bands like Silent Death, Brain Dead and Suffercation (formerly Suffocation, name changed to avoid confusion with the New York band), were playing in a more complex and refined style of death metal as opposed to some of their peers like Rator who were more concerned with playing as noisily as possible. Following a rather awkward (and much more black metal in tone) first demo, Silent Death's first full length album "Beyond the Sunrise" shows a very well composed and mature sounding recording.

"Beyond the Sunrise" is generally a mid paced album with a very thick production; guitars are super heavy, bass is fairly flat and the vocals are a rather lifeless low pitched growl. The songs themselves have an excellent sense of melody, which produces a similar kind of occult feel that other Malaysian bands such as Langsuyr and Sil Khannaz would play later. This type of melody isn't very dissimilar to the slower style of black metal being played in Europe at the time (Varathron, Samael). While this release is clearly a death metal album, it certainly invokes a similar murky feeling to these bands; the cover depicting a sort of reptillian/skeletal creature emerging from a swampy depth suits this kind of music perfectly. The songwriting is excellent and always keeps the listener engaged with a series of dark riffs that flow very well together. One of the only weak points of the album are the vocals, which are delivered in a rather bland, monotonous low-pitched growl and sounds rather generic for a death metal album in 1993. A stronger vocal performance could have improved the album, but at the same time the vocals don't stick out negatively to do anything to hurt the album either.

As far as I know, this album was only released on tape format and not CD or vinyl; this seems to be a trend with some of the bands in this region due to either budgetary restrictions or ease of duplication. Fortunately, the Psychic Scream Entertainment label reissued the album on cassette in 2004 so it should still be fairly easy to find, but it would be nice if a label did a proper reissue of this on vinyl. While this may not be an all-time classic, its still a very good death metal album that can easily hold its own with some of the best records to come out of Europe or America. Being from a rather obscure and difficult location to reach most likely diminished the popularity of the Southeast Asian scene in the light of more prominent scenes like Sweden or Florida, but the music contained between the two reels is what matters in the end, and it would be nice to see this scene getting the same kind of reverence that their first world contemporaries have.

S.O.D. - "Sounds of Disaster" (Swe)

2010-01-15T14:48:00.001-05:00

Discharge was one of the most influential and best hardcore bands, inspiring an entire genre based on one drum beat that is still quite popular today. Listening to the early records before they poofed their hair out, its quite easy to see why their influence was immediately felt within the punk scene. Bleak, hopeless and noisy songs that dealt with the abstraction of violence, nuclear war and government corruption struck a certain chord amongst disillusioned people in the height of 80s cold war paranoia. Discharge's influence was felt not only inside the English borders, but worldwide as well. Sweden in particular had a large number of bands that were played a similar style of punk rock.

S.O.D. had tracks on the compilations "Really Fast, vol. 2", "1984 the Second", and "24 Love Songs", but only released two non-compilation vinyl releases; this epynomous 7", and a later record "Speak Swedish or Die" (an obvious jab at the American band bearing the same initials), which were culled from this same recording session. A classic from start to finish, these six songs are noisy, dark, simple, and sloppy, in short, everything that makes hardcore from this time period great. Much like Anti-Cimex's two classic 7"s "Raped Ass" and "Victims of a Bombraid", this is very abrasive music with very little polishing or finesse. The drummer tends to fall behind the rest of the music in various places; as the music is played at a reletively fast pace, this tends to give the recording a slight plodding feel, adding to the already oppressive atmosphere of the music.

Like many of their Swedish contemporaries, S.O.D.'s lyrics were largely sung in Swedish. However, judging by the manner in which the vocals are delivered, it would appear that the lyrics are as minimalistic as the music is. The vocals are extremely hoarse, completely devoid of any melody, and shouted to accentuate the beginning of each musical phrasing, often in the form of three or four words per line.

Tracking down the original 7" can be rather pricy, but fortunately there is a rather good looking and sounding bootleg floating around which can be acquired without incurring any serious debts. The band's second 7" from 1990, "Speak Swedish or Die" (a rather obvious jab at the more famous S.O.D. from New York) and their compilation appearances are certainly worth listening to as well.

This kind of music will not only appeal to hardcore fans (in fact, I'd be surprised if there are many people who are into Swedish hardcore that do not know this 7" already), but fans of the lo-fi fuzzed out black metal from the late 90s might enjoy this as well. While S.O.D. and their ilk came from a completely different musical scene, and often times, a completely different side of the political spectrum, the end result is often similar in tone; very bleak and dissonant destructive music.

A New Dawn: The Rise of the Heretic

2010-01-12T18:30:00.003-05:00

The time draws near for the second phase of our mission: soon Morbid Knocking will be no more, and The Heretic's Torch will arise in its wake. As the final stages of planning are completed, the first issue of the hard copy The Heretic's Torch magazine will be unleashed. Featuring artwork by Saevus (Seth Bennett), who has worked with Faustcoven, and now Ares Kingdom and Countess among others, the magazine will feature extensive content, including the same in-depth reviews provided here on the blog, in addition to interviews and articles exploring various facets of the heavy metal underground. We hope to make this an annual celebration, primarily covering the finest the genre has had to offer since the last issue.

Also, as is evident, there is a new writer on the staff. Nate is an old school metal head with an extensive knowledge and penchant for the obscure, and will cover many of the old metal bands that the other writers don't get to as they focus on what's coming out now. Being that the primary writers' focuses are now turned to working on the magazine, we will be considering taking on additional writers to provide content for the blog portion of our mission. If interest, please contact.

Thanatos - "Out of Sanity" (Pol)

2010-01-06T12:19:00.002-05:00

Amongst the multitude of regional death metal scenes which popped up in the late 80s/early 90s, Poland's is one that is often ignored in the face of countries like Sweden and Finland. The reasons for this are definitely not for a lack of quantity of quality of bands, as Poland certainly had both in spades. Instead, Polish death metal faces problems of socioeconomic issues (most bands were demo only, and very few made it to the stage of recording a full length album), lack of exposure from being behind the Iron Curtain, and that most zines were written in Polish, a tongue that is often indecipherable to Westerners. Despite these hurdles, Poland had one of the most vibrant and interesting death metal scenes in the late 80s. Producing by far the largest amount of bands from Eastern Europe, Polish death metal typically had a very raw, underproduced sound filled with energetic youthfulness that can be compared with what the South American bands were doing at the time.

Hailing from the northern city of Elblag, Thanatos were one of Polish death metal's finest exports. Releasing two demos, 1989's "Deo Optimo Maximo", and 1990's "Out of Sanity" (as well as an unreleased recording entitled "Habitat of Sin"), the band changed their name to Trauma, presumably to avoid confusion with the ancient Dutch death metal band. Replacing some members and essentially keeping the same logo, the band under this name has had a long and healthy career that is still active; the band is scheduled to release their seventh full length in 2010. Nowadays Trauma's sound is akin to the technical death metal played by modern day Behemoth, and in my opinion, far less interesting than the savagery displayed during their days as Thanatos.

"Out of Sanity" is one of the best releases to come from the Polish death metal scene, and is one that was immediately praised by nearly all of the local death metal zines. The band was easily on par with the other greats from the early death metal scene such as Vader, Exorcist and DDT, which is no small feat. Much like Vader, Thanatos were heavily Slayer influenced, however, the two bands differed greatly in their approach. Early Vader felt like a progression forward from Reign in Blood, taking the extremely tight and fast rhythms and pushing the limit on speed, whereas Thanatos took more of a cue from darker riffing style of Hell Awaits, crafting a far more sinister atmosphere.

Structurally, the band differs greatly from early Slayer. Songs are short bursts, most of which not exceeding the three minute mark, transitions can be a bit jarring, and the playing is a bit sloppy. The somewhat messier transitions and instrumental passages are offset by the enormous amount of energy exhuded by the band; the vocals are a forceful howl and are among the most vicious that I've heard, and add a great deal to the music. The drummer is obviously trying to play faster than he is physically able to, even over parts where such speed isn't necessary. This approach can have its upsides and downsides; a more controlled style might have lent a darker sound to some of the more mid-paced riffs, but at the same time, the maniac drumming style gives the music an incredible frantic feel, of which even Vader in their prime weren't able to attain. It's interesting to note that how two bands can draw from the same influences but yet sound almost completely different from each other; Thanatos' approach is much more reminiscent of what Pentagram (the Chilean band) were doing at the time if perhaps they were a bit more reckless in their songwriting.

Early Polish death metal isn't going to be for everyone. For the most part, the scene is raw, messy and primitive, but for those that look for that sort of thing in death metal, "Out of Sanity" is one of the best recordings the genre has to offer. The mix is clear enough where guitar riffs can be easily discerned and all the instruments are leveled out with each other, but yet offers an incredibly energetic performance, maniac vocals, and a filthy guitar tone, all of which make this demo such an addicting way to spend fifteen minutes. To my knowledge, the Thanatos recordings haven't been reissued in any form, but considering Trauma's prolific and lengthy career, its more likely that they'll revisit their formative recordings and put out a quality reissue than the bands who cut one demo and then vanished off the face of the planet. Whether or not this will happen is a different matter entirely, but I'm crossing my fingers. Regardless if its physical availability, this is top notch raw, cult death metal, and comes highly recommended from me.

Poison - "Into the Abyss" (Ger)

2010-01-06T12:13:00.005-05:00

Germany arguably did more than any other European country in the 1980s to push the boundaries of extreme music. Sodom's first demos in 1982 were an astoundingly raw and primitive form of musical bashing of which the like was unheard of in heavy metal at the time. Their masterpiece "In the Sign of Evil" would, along with Bathory's first album and Hellhammer's "Apocalyptic Raids" would define the first wave black metal sound. Playing right alongside them were equally as influential bands Destruction and Kreator with their own forms of primitive blackened thrash by way of "Sentence of Death" and "Endless Pain". The German thrash scene would grow into one of Europe's strongest scenes, producing a myriad of bands which on the whole were much heavier than their American counterparts. Orienting towards more of a death metal approach as opposed to the lighter, more mosh-pit oriented structures that plagued the American thrash scene of the late 80s, the Germans produced a wealth of bands which would stand the test of time.

Poison were one of the first thrash bands from Germany. Forming in 1982, the band started off playing a murky, barely listenable form of primitive music which was clearly inspired by Hellhammer. Mirroring the Swiss trio's mid-tempo riffs found more on the "Triumph of Death" and "Death Fiend" demos as opposed to the faster Discharge type songs found on "Apocalyptic Raids", Poison's first demo "Sons of Evil" had the right idea, but ultimately failed in execution. The admirable adoption of cool pseudonyms like "Virgin Slaughter", "Angel of Death", "Witchhammer" and "Incubus Demon", awesome simple song titles ("Black Death", "Reaper", "Demon"), and handdrawn cover artwork of the grim reaper are all signs of what is sure to be a killer recording. Unfortunately at this stage in the band's career, the songwriting skills were fairly clunky and the recording terrible is barely field recorder rehearsal quality, which makes the listening experience rather difficult. The second demo "Bestial Death" had much better sound quality, but the actual songwriting skills hadn't improved too much. "Awakening the Dead" followed in 1987, which was another step in the right direction. "Into the Abyss" came around in 1987, and by this point, the band had drastically changed for the better.

Containing only four tracks in over thirty two minutes, the band had largely scrapped their prior Hellhammer influences and went for a more epic and drawn-out approach to writing music. The riffs themselves were rather simple, but the songwriting had improved to make even the simplest riffs string together effortlessly, with various subtle touches in the forms of slight rhythmic changes, well-placed drum hits and angular guitar leads. The sound quality the band had on this recording had never been better; all the instruments are mixed well and heard perfectly, the guitar tone is extremely dark sounding.

Opening up with a classic line of "Into the abyss I fall..." (also used to open up Darkthrone's first album "Soulside Journey"), the song "Sphynx" nicely sets the tone for the entire recording. Very dark and occult sounding black metal. Poison adopted a rather Lovecraftian slant to their lyrics, and this carries over into the music as well. "Into the Abyss" is one of the few recordings I've heard that are able to truly capture the weird, otherworldly vibe of Lovecraft's writings. This odd atmosphere is one of the demo's strongest points, and is part of the reason why this has always been a cult record for as long as I've been listening to this kind of music.

For a while this recording was difficult to track down. The album was released on vinyl in 1993 (the cover shown on the right with the upside down cross made up of skulls incased in triangles - a very cool cover if you ask me), and since then has been bootlegged several times until the recent Iron Pegasus compilation "Further Down the Abyss", which includes "Into the Abyss" in its entirety, as well as several rehearsal, live and various other demo tracks. None of the previous three demos are included in their entirety, which is rather disappointing as I quite like the "Bestial Death" and "Awakening the Dead" demos, but its not a huge loss considering how much better "Into the Abyss" is than the rest of their catalog.

Poison never really achieved the recognition that they deserved, and split up in 1987. "Virgin Slaughter" would later form the band R.U. Dead?, which aside from having one of the worst names of all time, carried on the Poison legacy through the 90s, moving in the same musical vein as "Into the Abyss" with varying degrees of musical success. Most of this material is compiled on the "Completely Dead" CD, and is certainly worth tracking down. "Into the Abyss", however, is an absolutely essential recording, which to me is the best metal to come out of Germany. While Kreator and Sodom were certainly much more influential in the long run, none of their works were as well composed or performed as Poison's masterpiece. A true classic.

Savage Death - "Mass Genocide" (USA)

2010-01-06T12:13:00.001-05:00

1985 was one of the best years for death metal. Following a series of landmark recordings in 1984 such as the demos by Possessed and Mantas, dozens of new bands formed and inspired by the genre's founders, released their own demo tapes. From all areas of the globe ranging from Brazil to Denmark to Japan and all the way back to the US, what started as a handful of teenagers pushing the limits a little beyond their favorite Exodus and Venom recordings quickly turned into a tangible genre that would be well defined a by the tail end of the decade. 1985 was the year that many of these first wave bands got their start, and at this tine the death metal genre was still nebulous in that it would constantly overlap with the developing thrash metal and black metal scenes. Savage Death were one of the many bands releasing their first demo at this time, and certainly rank among the greatest.

Hailing from East Rutherford, New Jersey, Savage Death naturally took a more American approach to death metal than some of their contemporaries. Instead of drawing influence from Hellhammer or Sodom like the European bands, Savage Death's sound was derived more from American thrash. Possessed cited that Exodus were one of their biggest influences, and based on this recording, its clear that these guys had a similar approach. The music on presented on this demo is fast and reckless the same way that "Bonded by Blood" and "Darkness Descends" are, except the vocal approach is much rougher and the music is far less polished. The vocals are typically delivered in raspy growl; exceptions to this come in the form of totally over the top high pitched shrieks which make appearances through the rest of the recording, including a very memorable wail that opens up the demo. Vocalizations such as these greatly add to the overall energetic feel of the primitive metal played under them.

The sheer energy which is exuded from this recording alone would propel this into great demo status. Not to say that the music on this album isn't totally catchy, fun and well written, but I always find it preferably when the band is able to capture a sound that sounds uncontrollable as opposed to bands who overproduce and overrehearse their music to the point where it sounds clinical and sterile. Musically it may not be the most original stuff in the world (the opening riff to the first song sounds suspiciously like Death's "Infernal Death"), but the band has such an intense vibe that even when they slow down and play on a mid-tempo riff you can still tell that they still mean business. The songs themselves aren't too complex and don't really exceed a handful of riffs, but considering that this is death metal from 1985, that isn't too far out of the ordinary.

Later these guys would do another demo in 1986 called "Crucified in Hell", and guitar player Tom Stevens went on to play with other bands such as Nokturnel, Morpheus Descends and Exhile, but for my money, this demo is the classic recording. This demo absolutely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other death metal classics from the mid 80s; "Surrender or Die", "Seven Churches", "Bestial Devastation"... it really is that good. Unlike some of the other demos released around this time, the production is rough enough to give it a more sinister sound, but not too raw that hinders its listenability. For first wave death metal, it really doesn't get much better than this.

Gehennah - "No Fucking Christmas" (Swe)

2009-12-29T16:36:00.004-05:00

Successfully spreading holiday cheer through music can be a difficult task, especially on the part of the listener. I typically dread the day after Thanksgiving, where for the next month, all public establishments are guaranteed to have blaring a deadly mix of traditional carols, groaner parodies, and overly sensitive rock ballads in an attempt to get their patrons in the Christmas spirit. Nothing is worse than a washed up artist trying to make a quick buck by getting in touch with their "spiritual" side and offering up a worthless platter of garbage covers that nobody wants to hear. Unfortunately this isn't limited to pop music, as evidenced by Rob Halford's recent foray into this worthless genre.

Fortunately for us, Gehennah just like to drink beer and play raging tunes. With the cover art depicting Santa Claus caught in the crosshairs, this band of Swedish maniacs immediately tell Christmas music where it can go. Delivering the goods (or presents) with two tracks on this 7" (later repressed on 12"), Gehennah storm through seven minutes of their particular brand of drunken black/thrash by sounding like an amped up, heavier, filther and drunker version of Motorhead.

Followed by a brief intro of sleigh bells, "Sathana Claus" really steals the show on this 7". Musically it is in the same vein as the rest of the band's catalog; sloppily and drunkenly delivered vocals, massive and thick bass sound, fast rockish riffs that wouldn't be out of place on "Ace of Spades" or "Welcome to Hell", and heaps of attitude and balls. The great lyrics really push tune over the top, painting a picture of Santa being a drunken maniac that is hellbent on some poor town's destruction. Sounds of gunshots close out the track, and on the flipside is "Merry Shitmas!", discussing the finer points of receiving a "sausage of shit" under the tree.

This band isn't for everyone. Released in 1995 along with their debut LP "Hardrocker", the band's sound was a fist in the face of the overly serious black metal movement that was growing at the time and harkened back to the days when metal was about the important things in life - getting laid, getting wasted, and getting into fights. For me this band spearheaded the 90s thrash revival movement. They injected a solid amount of humor in the music, while never coming across as being silly or kitschy, and most importantly they didn't forget to write a glut of monster riffs. Everything they've released is great, fun metal from start to finish, and is the perfect thing to put on when drinking with like-minded friends. This 7" is no different, and while it may be a non-essential piece of the discography to a casual listener due to the novelty holiday theme, any fan of ripping heavy metal will not be disappointed with the sounds contained herein.

Rossos - "Live in Kiruna" (Swe)

2009-12-18T14:31:00.003-05:00

Some of the best bands were one-offs that cut one demo and then promptly folded. Originating in Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden (approximately 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle), Rossos fit nicely into this category. As a direct result of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal explosion occuring a few miles west of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden experienced its own collection of emerging heavy metal bands. None of them really received the fame outside of the Swedish borders that their British counterparts did, there was still a very healthy scene which produced a solid amount of classic recordings. However, many of these bands hailed from parts of the country which were far less isolated than Kiruna, and could likely network, trade tapes, and play gigs and in general have far more opportunities than a band that far north could. Aside from their location, not too much is known about the band; they were around for a brief point in time, recorded this on what is apparently a Swedish radio station, and then at sometime later called it quits. Which is an absolutely shame, as this material is easily in the top tier of quality of early heavy metal bands coming from Sweden along with Heavy Load and Crystal Pride.

For a live demo, the band got quite a heavy sound for this recording, especially in 1982. The guitars are very thick, and the vocals are delivered in a strong, confident manner; I've heard this band compared to Gotham City, which would be an apt comparison musically, but the strong vocals really set them apart from that band. Rossos play in a mostly mid-tempo style during the first three tracks, and goes into a heavier, almost speed metal number for the final track "Stronger than You". All of the songs are excellently put together with great senses of melody and flow. The band clearly knew their limitations, playing in a very composed and tight fashion, and yet still retain a very youthful energy in their sound. One very notable exception to the band's tight playing is a rather noticeable mistake at the beginning of "Where are You?". A member starts playing off-time, confuses the other band, and thus brings the song to an abrupt halt. The audience then erupts in an outburst of laughter, and the banter following this moment is presumably is rather entertaining if one can speak Swedish, which I unfortunately cannot.

If there was any band that deserved a reissue treatment, it is Rossos. For the caliber of music these guys were playing, its a damn shame that they are so criminally underrated and overlooked. Considering Kiruna's size of less than 20,000 people, its somewhat easy to see why they probably weren't too popular in the time that they are active, but in today's world where heavy metal music like this has a much larger cult following, this is one recording that begs for a vinyl pressing. This can easily stand on its own not only against the Swedish high-water marks, but also against what the rest of the world was doing at the same time.

Mutilated - "Psychodeath Lunatics" (Fra)

2009-12-18T13:40:00.003-05:00

Extended guitar solos and lead work have always been a prominent feature of heavy metal since day one. Black Sabbath essentially wrote the book on tasteful metal leads, and very few bands have been able to reach that watermark of success since. Not for lack of effort though, as many young guitarists seem to get the idea in their head that heavy metal should be a showcase for fretboard workouts and flashy masturbatory compositions. A fine example of this would be the first entry in the Shrapnel Records US Metal compilation series, which is largely a homegrown affair to showcase shredder guitarists. Personally, I can't think of any type of music which is more boring than this stuff. I don't agree that 'talent' is being able to play your guitar as fast as humanly possible, but I will make the claim that 'talent' requires writing good songs with pieces that can balance each other out and make sense within the context of one another. It always amazes me how many heavy metal fans often confuse technical ability with raw talent, but these types can be rather easily spotted and ignored due to their instantly recognizable pony tails and Dream Theatre shirts.

Fortunately, on the other end of the spectrum, a number guitarists are interested in writing short and furious bursts of lead work. Mutilated definitely fall into this camp. France wasn't exactly a hotbed of stellar death and thrash metal acts in the tail end of the 80s, but there were a handful of worthy bands to emerge from that country to warrant exploration into their scene. "Psychodeath Lunatics" reigns very close to the top of the pile when it comes to quality French death metal releases, though bands like Massacra and Agressor certainly had some classics under their belt as well.

Starting off as Mutilator, the band released one demo in 1987, "Omens of Dark Fate" under this name and changed their name to Mutilated. I'm not entirely sure why their name change occured, as the logo pretty much remained the same - I'd wager that it was to avoid confusion with the up and coming Brazillian band Mutilator, who by this point definitely outshined the Frogs in terms of popularity. Under the Mutilated moniker, "Psychodeath Lunatics" followed in 1988, and a final demo, "Resurrected" would come in 1991. A 7" was planned and recorded for in 1993, but never saw the light of day, and presumably the band called it quits sometime soon thereafter.

"Psychodeath Lunatics" remains their finest recorded output. Opening up with a flurry of drums and totally wild and uncontrollable leads that brings to mind Slayer in their prime (think of the opening solo in "Captor of Sin"), Mutilated tear through four (or three, see below) tracks of outstanding death/thrash of the highest caliber. This recording is bursting with energy, which considering at the time of the recording the band was a two piece, that is quite an accomplishment. Unlike many other energetic early death metal recordings, the production on this recording is quite clear. All the instruments can be heard quite clearly, nothing is overpowering in the mix, and yet everything has room to breathe. The guitar sound is slightly on the treble side, giving the frantic leads the ability to push further through the music, yet allowing the underlying riffing to still sound heavy and mean. The vocals are a hoarse shout, which would not be out of place on most other heavier late-80s thrash efforts, but fortunately the band does not fall into any of the trappings of the genre. No silly sounding gang vocals, no concern for the environment, no funk influences, just pure evil metal.

This has been bootlegged a couple times to my knowledge, once on Foreign Legion records with the "Ressurected" demo and the unreleased 7", and once by Voodoo Evil with just the "Resurrected" demo. The presence of two bootlegs might indicate that the likelihood of this getting officially reissued is slim, but such is the case with a lot of these recordings. The original tape had three tracks on it, but the bootlegs contain a fourth track from this session, "Cabalistic Cryptograms", an update from the Mutilator demo. All of the song titles on here are as good as that particular track, and even the title "Psychodeath Lunatics" is quite excellent and fitting for the violent and raging tracks on this demo. Absolutely one of the best French death metal bands, this demo is a must for maniacs who want their death metal vicious and energetic.

Barathrum - "Hailstorm" (Fin)

2009-12-13T11:30:00.003-05:00

Amongst the numerous subgenres and crossover hybrids found in heavy metal, the combination of black metal and doom seems to be one of the least explored for unknown reasons. The two seem like they would be able to merge together more often, as the themes of the genre often overlap conceptually, both exploring darkness, death and depression. Doom metal has always been about conveying a slower, more oppressive atmosphere to the listener; though this has not necessarily been the focus of black metal since its inception, it is an undeniable part of the second wave. A multitude of black metal bands since the early 90s decided to compose less traditionally riff-based albums, and instead focused on creating darker, more atmospheric works, distancing themselves from the more rock based elements of the foundational bands. With the faster, more blast-beat driven Norwegian sound dominating the influence of the second wave, its somewhat easy to see why slower black metal didn't catch on in the face of more popular bands, but still leaves room for a great deal of innovation; especially when dealing with the uncreative and unimaginative who claim at every opportunity that heavy metal is dead and has thoroughly run its course.

Barathrum were one of the first bands to release material firmly rooted in both black metal and doom, described by the band as Jetblack Metal. After a string of demos dating back to 1991 under the band's initial moniker of Darkbeast, the band released their first full length, "Hailstorm" on Nazgul's Eyrie Proudctions in 1995. "Hailstorm" is easily one of the most unique releases I've heard, both in terms of composition and its production. The album rarely exceeds a plodding pace, and moments where the tempo hits triple digits are quite rare. The songs themselves are set up largely around rhythm section. A slower tempo allows for more room for the drums to breathe, and the patterns laid down can only be described as "ritualistic". Equally prominent is the basswork, which accompanies the percussion in such a fashion where at times it almost feels like a percussion instrument itself.

The production job on the album reflects the rhythm dominated songs; the bass has a massive sound, bearing a similar gritty and dirty distortion effect to the bass found on Napalm Death's "Scum" or Repulsion's "Horrified". The guitars are almost non-existant in the mix, and only appear in the form of a very light trebly buzz at various points. While this might seem like a downside to the production job, the guitars simply add a light accompaniment to the bass-driven rhythms, and add more to the music by being far less prominent. An interesting counterpoint to this mix would be the pre-"Hailstorm" demos, which feature many of the same tracks, but with a more traditional production. The demo versions of these tracks are certainly not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but lack the jarring and brooding feel of "Hailstorm".

To say that this album is a masterpiece is an understatement. Many bands during black metal's second wave tried to capture an extremely dark and foul vibe, but few were as successful at it as Barathrum were in this period of their career. Their grasp of ritualistic and occult sounding metal remains unparalleled to this day. Barathrum had a clear grasp on what they were doing, and unlike many other bands who try shoot for a very "evil" sounding recording, this album flows very naturally and does not feel like the band is trying too hard. The use of samples is very tasteful (a scream here and there, the excellent album opener of a building on fire), and the vocals have a very distant, almost other worldly feel to them which floats over the murky music below. A maniac, over the top vocal performance can be preferrable in other types of music, namely out of control and faster metal, but in a more controlled and deliberate environment such as this, the vocal style present on the album complements the music perfectly.

As good as "Hailstorm" is, I think the band achieved even greater success with their third album "Infernal". However, "Hailstorm" remains by far their most unique sounding album, which truly stands out from the glut of mid-90s black metal releases which had already started to grow stale. Tracking down an original NEP CD can be rather difficult these days, but there is a somewhat unofficial re-release of this, along with the band's second album "Eerie" on Spinefarm, being much easier to locate. The band's next couple albums would show them playing in a similar brooding black/doom style, which would eventually morph into a simpler, almost Venom styled brand of evil from "Legions of Perkele" on. Despite the fact that the Spinefarm era of the band didn't quite have the same unique flair as the earlier material on NEP, pretty much everything in this band's career is worth checking out. From the earliest demos to the most recent studio outputs, Barathrum have very few missteps, and "Hailstorm" remains amongst one of the greatest debut albums of all time.

Samhain - Evil Courier (Den)

2009-12-08T14:52:00.004-05:00

New Renaissance was one of the ballsier metal labels active in the mid-80s. At a time when death metal was in its infancy, nearly all mainstream publications scoffed their heads at both death metal as well as thrash metal bands who decided to play on the heavier end of the spectrum. Hellhammer, Bathory, Sodom, Voivod, and even Slayer's "Show No Mercy" all got torn apart by clueless reviewers who would prefer that all metal sound like overproduced tripe a-la Dokken. Tom Warrior was so ashamed at the thrashing he got at the hands of these goons that he completely disowned Hellhammer, almost completely oblivious to the fact that he had unleashed on the world a series of monumentally groundbreaking recordings. New Renaissance was one of the few labels to take the heavier bands head on and embrace them rather than reject them; some of the first releases on the label included Bloodfeast, Necrophagia and Post Mortem, as well as the Speed Metal Hell and Thrash Metal Attack compilation series. These compilations featured demo tracks of up and coming bands from around the globe, and Samhain's track "Plague of Messiah" found its way onto volume 2 of Speed Metal Hell, quite arguably being the best song amongst a killer lineup of underground bands.

Hailing from Denmark, Samhain did not have a very lengthy career. After their sole release "The Courier", the band changed their name to Desexult and released the excellent demo "S.O.D.F.O.A.D." (standing for "Soon Our Demo Finds Our Album Deal" - it didn't), changed their style to a more commerical/jokey thrash sound and then folded. This demo as Samhain and the first demo as Desexult stands as the highlights of their brief career, and while the band wasn't exactly breaking down any new barriers, they played their brand of primitive death metal quite well.

"The Courier" consists of three songs, the leadoff track being their hit "Plague of Messiah". Beginning with the classic death metal intro - bells, winds, vague chanting in the background, and someone saying a few evil words, this recording quickly gets going with an explosive opening riff. Following the patterns laid down by Hellhammer, simplistic and fast is how most of the music on here comes at the listener, with occasional breaks into slower riffs that would not be out of place on "Morbid Tales". The band's approach has an almost punkish vibe, very similar to what acts like Hellhammer, Slaughter and Deathstrike were doing in their formative years. The sound on this recording is very thick, and while somewhat sloppily played (the drummer seems to fall out of time with the guitarist on more than one occasion), it has a very effective pummelling effect. Vocals are somewhat of a monotone grunt, in which for particular emphasis, turn into a more enthusiastic shriek during various key moments of the songs. Though the song structures are rather basic, the band has a very good compositional sense; no riff overstays its welcome, and different parts manage to flow into each other rather effortlessly. The final track in particular, "Salvation" (which would later appear on the first volume of Thrash Metal Attack under the name Desexult, despite the fact that the version from this demo is used) utilizes a series of brooding mid-tempo riffs and tasteful use of overlaying lead work, to convey a darker and evil atmosphere.

It is rather unfortunate that the band decided to jump on the wacky thrash/shorts metal bandwagon later on, as they really excelled at playing primitive death metal. While "The Courier" doesn't exactly exhude originality, and its influences can be very clearly traced to Hellhammer, it doesn't feel like a clone recording either, and has its own personality and feel to it. Its difficult for me to choose between this recording as "S.O.D.F.O.A.D." as a clear favorite of mine, so I will say that they are both excellent and worth tracking down. In addition to two thirds of the tracks on "The Courier" being available on the aforementioned New Renaissance compilations, it was also reissued on 7" by Midian Creations in the mid-90s, making "The Courier" by far the easier of the two recordings to locate, as to my knowledge, "S.O.D.F.O.A.D." has not been reissued in any format; a rather ironic fate given its title.

Y Diawled - "Noson Y Blaidd" (UK)

2009-12-08T14:34:00.000-05:00

One interesting thing about the United Kingdom is that while English has been the primary language spoken for centuries, pockets of civilization exist in which Celtic languages still thrived. English is a language derived from a strange combination of Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) and Norman (Romance), both quite different language families than Celtic. As a result, Celtic languages have a much different look, feel and sound to them than English, and many predate English by several centuries.

Welsh is the most popular of the Celtic languages spoken in the United Kingdom, and as such, it only makes sense that a handful of bands would come from Welsh speaking areas. Forming at the height of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal explosion, Y Diawled (translating to 'The Devils' in English), their vinyl release came in 1982 with a track on the four song Fflach Records compilation entitled "Shwt Mae Siapus", which would be followed by the "S.O.S" 7" a year later in 1983. With original singer Kevin Davies backing the band, these tracks while being competant NWOBHM, did not particularly stand out from the rest of their peers. Some moments in this era of the band remind me a bit of the songs from the first Witchfynde LP.

1983 showed the band recruiting Rhiannon Tomos, who has had a very successful solo career in the realm of Welsh rock music. Tomos has a very powerful, almost gravelly voice which to my ears sounds a bit like Janis Joplin might have sounded like if she fronted a Welsh heavy metal band. Tomos' addition to the band brought a whole different dimension to the band's sound, adding a much more mystical and ancient feel to the music. The 1983 7" "Noson Y Blaidd" ('Night of the Wolf') was her only recording with the band before the band folded, leaving her to pursue her solo career even further.

Containing two brilliant heavy metal tracks, the A-side of the 7" is the slow and brooding title track, featuring somewhat intricate and well placed leads. Not quite moving or constructed like a doom song, the song's slower pace and moody vocal delivery creates a rather eerie mood which goes well with the minimalistic cover design of a set of inhuman looking eyes peering out from the darkness under a reddish moon. The B-side, "Dewch Gyda Ni" ('Come with Us') is an upbeat scorcher of a song with a completely different tone than its A-side. With a faster driving beat and an unstoppable riff behind it, it gives the perfect opportunity to Tomos who really showcases her vocal abilities, belting her way through the song. Its a shame she didnt get a chance to record more material with the band, as these two tracks really show her command of vocal ability. One of her previous tracks "Cer â Hi" from her solo days before joining Y Diawled is also a ripping, almost speed metal song, but a majority of her solo output I've heard is basic bar rock type stuff which does not hold too much particular interest to me.

As far as I know, none of the Y Diawled stuff has not been reissued in any form, so some of the material can be difficult to track down, but is absolutely worth it for any serious NWOBHM collectors or heavy metal fans.

Mayhem - 1989 demo (Hun)

2009-12-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes choosing the wrong name can make what would already been an obscure recording even more obscure. By 1989, there were quite a few bands who would bear the moniker of Mayhem, each with varying degrees of success; at least two bands from the United States, a speed metal band with a track on a New Renaissance compilation and the legendary hardcore band who would later change their name to NYC Mayhem, a band from Brazil who would contribute to the legendary second entry in the Warfare Noise compilation series, four demo only bands from continental europe (Finland, Italy, and two from Germany), a UK82 band who did a 7" on Riot City in 1982, as well as the Norwegian band who would gain international fame and infamy in the early 90s both from a string of foundational black metal records and the unusual circumstances surrounding the deaths of two of their members. Needless to say, its rather easy to see how this Hungarian band might have gotten lost in the shuffle; the fact that they come from behind the Iron Curtain probably didn't help matters too much either.

This particular Mayhem weren't around for a very long time and represent a small blip on the somewhat small Hungarian late 80s death/black metal scene. During their short period of existence, the band cut two demo tapes as well as a few rehearsal and live tracks floating around. The demo from 1989 is the first one, and contains a rather lengthy running time of over 30 minutes (almost 45 minutes if one were to count the bonus rehearsal tracks distributed with the recording), which more than makes up for the fact that the band didn't really do too much else.

Musically the band plays in a fairly standard black/death style that was fairly common at that time in Europe. While their Hungarian contemporaries such as Tormentor, Fantom or Angel Reaper were pushing the envelope with more extreme music, Mayhem's brand of black metal was rooted more in European speed/thrash, and sounds a bit more like it was released in 1985 as opposed to 1989. As this is a cheaply recorded demo tape, the sound is naturally rather thin, leaning more towards the treble end.

While by no means a musically complex recording, the band play a bit more than the average three-chord riffs that many of their peers were doing. Many of the songs have a bit of melody to them, and even while the musicianship may be a little sloppy getting the riffs across, the band makes sure to hit the right notes at the right time. On one of their live tapes they do a cover of Sodom's "Sepulchral Voice", and their seminal album "Obsessed by Cruelty" might not be a bad point of comparison for the music played on this tape; vocals are delivered in a similar harsh snarl (filtered through the incomprehensible language that is Hungarian, of course) on top of a series of rather catchy and primitive thrash riffs.

One thing that I've always found interesting and desirable about Eastern European bands that play this kind of music is a majority of them invoke a certain occult atmosphere; one of witches, counts, ancient spellbooks, rusty torture devices, that sort of thing. This band is no different, and that same strange feeling runs very strongly through these tracks, without the use of any keyboards, female vocals or intro noises to add a masking gimmick to cover up for the actual music itself. Fans of this style will surely not be disappointed with this demo, and while it is not the best or most innovative recording in this genre, it is certainly competent enough and worthy to anyone interested in the goings on of Eastern European black metal.

Abhorer - "Rumpus of the Undead" (Sgp)

2009-12-08T14:31:00.001-05:00

A general rule of thumb when it comes to death/black metal, especially during the second wave explosion of 1987 - 1992 or so, is the shittier the country, the better the metal. Singapore is absolutely no exception. While having one of the most authoritarian governments in the world who actively repress art, subversive or not, had a thriving death/black metal scene in the late 80s/early 90s. One part about playing this kind of music is that singing about Satan, cemeteries, corpses, witchcraft and the like is rather abstract and fantastical, opposed to the direct protest and idealism of the contemporary hardcore and punk scenes. Still, even in a place like Singapore it takes a hell of a lot of balls to play this kind of music and at times feels a lot more sincere as a result then its first world counterparts. Not to say that places like United States or Western Europe didn't have a great scene for this kind of stuff, but the Singapore bands tended to play only raw uncompromisingly harsh music which was never meant to be anything but for underground diehards only.

While Abhorer were not the first band to play this kind of music in Singapore, they played a much more stripped down and brutal form of music than their elder countrymen Nuctemeron were doing at the time. One interesting point to note about the Singapore scene is that it largely morphed out of nowhere in the late 80s. Malaysia had a sizeable heavy metal/hard rock scene in the early - mid 80s, but the presence of these bands were largely absent from Singapore, aside from one band Rusty Blade. Rusty Blade's first release is from 1987 which was fairly late in the decade; by this time death, black and thrash metal scenes were well developed all over the globe, and this was and only one year before Nuctemeron would cut their first death/thrash demo tape. "Rumpus of the Undead" is arguably the most influential Singapore recording, and in my opinion certainly the best. While the full length "Zygotical Sabbatory Unabapt" would give them international recognition, the band never sounded better than they did on this demo tape.

The cover is pretty much perfect for this recording. A hand drawn monochromatic image of a satanic priest rising from the grave, where one of the headstones reads "RIP JESUS CHRIST", hands poised to either cast some kind of evil spell, or just from rigor mortis in true hopping vampire style. Its difficult to tell with Eastern countries sometimes. The logo is engulfed in flames, features multiple upside down cross and a pentagram. In other words, fucking perfect.

Musically the four songs (+ intro of noises, wind, growling, etc) are just as primitive and crude. Each song contains a handful of basic riffs, that are almost punk like in construction. A good point of reference would be perhaps the Sodom demos or Hellhammer's faster tracks, but with a more dissonant approach to the songwriting. The production is extremely dirty and raw, and the guitars just sound so vile. The drumming is sloppy yet unrelenting and the vocals are an inhuman howl which pushes the recording even more over the top. They are probably the best part about the demo, and its a shame that they were toned down a bit for future recordings. The dissonant qualities of the riffs combined with the sloppy drumming give this a real chaotic feel, one of those super energetic recordings that feels like its going to burst at any moment. Even though there have been faster bands, even for 1989, few bands were able to capture this level of raw intensity. No doubt people that care about silly things like "technical proficiency" will hate this, but people that care about such nonsense will probably do best to hit the back button on their browser. Death metal is supposed to exude a certain atmosphere, and this nails it right on the head, something that modern sterile tech-death bands like Necrophagist completely miss. This is death metal how it was meant to be played, completely raw, unfettered, and uncompromising.

This recording was reissued several times over the years, first as a split LP with the Japanese death metal band Necrophile with their recording "Deride the Remedied", a classic in its own right. The two recordings play well off one of another. The second reissue came in the form of the Xtreem Music CD "Unholy Blasphemer", which compiles this demo, the Upheaval of Blasphemy 7", and the "Zygotical Sabbatory Unabapt" LP - essentially everything the band had recorded. This is by far the easiest version of the demo to track down, and while the packaging on the CD isn't the best, it gets the job done of making the best Southeast Asian recording widely available to the public.

Mastodon - Crack The Skye [USA]

2009-11-27T22:57:00.002-05:00

Mastodon is one of those bands that can appeal to many different people, from people that don’t like much metal, to people that like metalcore bullshit, and to people who like to keep their metal ‘true’. Mastodon has changed the way they play metal, almost completely since the days of Remission. They have become more and more progressive and less focused on big heavy riffs. I’ve liked every album Mastodon has put out, but Blood Mountain left a sour taste in my mouth. It seems that it didn’t quite want to be a progressive metal album but it also didn’t want to be a riff heavy sludge album, like Leviathan or Remission. However, Blood Mountain now makes a lot of sense. It’s bridging the gap between early Mastodon and newer Mastodon. I think Mastodon has finally realized that they can add a twist to progressive rock that other bands haven’t pursued and still have their inherent heaviness.

The first thing that is surprising to the new Mastodon album is the vocals. Most of the vocals are clean, yet slightly strained. This combination is simply outstanding. With their gruff progressive rock riffs, it fits absolutely perfectly. As Mastodon has said in their interviews, they want to put their vocals on the next level, like what Yes and other 70s progressive rock bands accomplish. Each song has memorable riffs and vocal lines. When listening to the album, I can’t help but be flabbergasted by the technicality and melodies of these riffs. Mastodon really gets it. They get what it is to be metal, yet want to add their own twist to the numerous bands that nobody gives a damn about. The riffs can rip your heart out, yet put you into a hypnotic trance and which only allows you to listen to the album. For example, in “The Czar” there is a constant repetition of the first few verses and riffs, but it’s subtly building up and releases it’s energy into a soul wrenching riff and vocal melodies. The song continues to through building more tension and energy and releases it again at the end. I don’t think Mastodon has created such a phenomenal song s in their previous albums. Well, that is of course if you don’t count “The Last Baron”, which is easily the best song on the entire album. I’d even say, probably the best song of 2009? We will see though.

After talking about the two epics of the albums, is it assumed the shorter songs are just filler? This can’t be further from the truth. While the songs are more vocal heavy than riff heavy at first, the riffs eventually come through and show their brilliance. For example, in the track Oblivion, the first riffs is in the background, but after a few listens and the brilliant vocal melodies become familiar a riff that is almost something unknown to Mastodon and a lot of other metal bands. Its melody, tension, build up capacity, and sheer aceness just takes the song to the next level.
To put it bluntly: this album is definitely worth the hype.

New Music from Ares Kingdom and Revelation

2009-09-17T20:54:00.003-04:00

I just thought that I would bring to the attention of our readers here that both Revelation and Ares Kingdom will be releasing new full-length albums by the end of the year, and that each has made a new track available for listening.

Revelation - A Matter of Days from For the Sake of No One (Shadow Kingdom Records):

Ares Kingdom - Incendiary from Incendiary (Nuclear War Now! Productions):

Master's Hammer English Language Translations

2009-08-28T17:26:00.002-04:00

Greetings to all.

As we continue to move forth with our plans to release a printed magazine under the banner of The Heretic's Torch, we remain on hiatus. However, as part of one of the articles I have endeavored to write, I found that it had become incumbent upon myself to gain a deeper and more thorough understanding of and appreciation for the lyrics to Master's Hammer's two seminal works, Ritual and The Jilemnice Occultist (or Jilemnický Okultista. Being that I am a native English speaker and have no knowledge myself of the Czech language, I approached a fellow Master's Hammer fan from the Czech Republic with the proposition of assisting me in translating the lyrics to these two works. It is thus mostly to his credit that what follows can be presented, hopefully to the service of many fans of the band. With his rough translations, I used a Czech-English dictionary and cross-referenced various choices of words and grammatical quirks with the original lyrics to ensure a faithful translation. With that said, this should nevertheless be seen as a rough translation at its core and in no way professional nor definitive, and it certainly does not maintain the poetic consistency of the original Czech, nor its rhyme scheme. What it does offer, however, is a deeper insight into one of the more interesting metal bands in the black metal scene to English speakers that they would not perhaps have otherwise had at their disposal. It is thus without further ado that I present my collaborative translations of Master's Hammer's lyrics for their first two albums. Ritual and The Jilemnice Occultist. It is important to note that the latter, with the exception of the last track, is a narrative play and should be read as such. Also, if you spot any errors (especially translation errors if you know Czech), PLEASE contact me.

Ritual

1) Intro [Instrumental]

2) Pád modly (The Fall of the Idol)

Mighty black smoke from the bowels of Earth
The heavens bleed,
The deep red stains on the shining snow
They steadily grow larger.

It's probable
That someone above
Desperately tries
To wash away the sins of world -
It's hard to curse
The already cursed
Nothing can be renewed
When evil is sown!

Thy headstone is hidden by hungry flames,
Smoke climbs up to the heavens.
We will die with the blessing
Of destroyers of the false faith!

The jailers of heaven, your heaven is jail;
Give me just one place in the universe -
Hell! I'll destroy your monument
With one blow - the final blow!

3) Každý z nás (Each of Us)

Your hearts are overflowing with anger
Unforgiving,
A passion looking for release
For which there is no place,
Those deceptive ulcers
On beating hearts
Finally free,
Now it's something more than
Blasphemy!

Hideous symbols of holy figures
Atrocious images of the crucified
Are moulded from his flesh
Thousands of knives engrave the sign:
Each of us is killing God!

Bring my burden to the ritual
Disfigured to match his picture
The astral chain is very strong
Its heart must be pierced.

The molten steel spikes
Pass through the melting wax
The glimmer fades for
The believers with hollow brains!

4) Ritual [Instrumental]

5) Géniové (Wizards)

So as in deadly agony
You live your passing life
The last sunset
Projects bloody shadows
Images of the other side
Moving on the wall
The anxiety turns to wrath
The elementals!

"Father, why did you leave me?"
"Because your faith is stronger than me!"
"I know, I don't need you any more, wizards have no funerals."

To the land of awesome mysteries
Where only the dead can go
Guided by the force of victory
Not waiting for what fate brings.

Terror now hides from us
The angel of self-delusion
Leviathan
Opens his mouth!

6) Černá svatozář (Black Halo)

You behold the burning black halo
Of he who preaches
That life is an illusion
Who beckons you – “go with me,”
You've hidden your face
Vainly cherishing
The glances at his eyes.

When the seven gates of hell
Are opened
It's too late to think
What should have been done
Beware the desire to enter uninvited
Your soul will be devoured by the freezing massif.

Fragments of heavy iron
Crash through the darkness
Two eyes shine in the distance
With listless calm
No living being has ever penetrated his stare
Unless - evil is the dominant element.
With the pain of existence you will understand,
Without form, the pure evil in every one of us
In that moment you will feel
The breath of the devil closing in
And you will ask questions no more!

7) Věčný návrat (Eternal Return)

The ghastly rays of light
On crystalline waters
Through the cold eternal night
Flames flicker
Slow and silent tongues of flames
Smouldering pestilent will.
After all we are to ourselves
The symbol of salvation,
They will not survive who do not know.
The pentagram on the chest of each of us
Is a symbol expressing all.

This time no signal will be heard
Rebellion of souls casting shadows
Hell's bells are covered in blood
And they ring to eternal return!

Well do I know the place, to which we all
belong, don't trust to lying prophets, God
Is our slave and Satan as well;
Those two bastards drink my blood.
And death is the end for everybody
But we will yet show you
What it means, what it means,
To look into the Master's face!

8) Jáma pekel (Hell's Mouth)

The village is burning, alone I travel in the night
I shorten my way through the field, the stretch
Surrounded by smoke, against better judgement,
Although I don't know the meaning, my purpose is clear.
I lose consciousness yet I'm awake
The devil leads me, down there - to Him.

Perhaps I'm already dead and gone from this world
Satan however gives my strength back.
Finally I see the throat of hell
I'm warmly invited into the burning darkness.
I draw nearer to the bodies immaterial,
Iron bars close behind me.

Hell's mouth - a hundred times cursed
Hell's mouth - bathed in blood.

Now I serve the devil, by death and evil
I spread devastation, I am demonic.
In every house a black altar
On every picture, there is my face.
With a frightening laugh I return here
Servants of the devil fall to the ground.

Black is the desire, but colorless is the blood
He who is not the chosen, harvests my wrath.
Vainly they toil, they pray and dream
Not everyone can become a demon.
Possessed with anger they destroy a village,
But vainly they do it, it burns to no avail!

9) Zapálili jsme onen svět (We Have Burned the Other World)

Will our wildest dream become reality?
A massacre of ravenous spirits
Treat only genuine evil well
And wish to hear the demons

Fog scattered for a thousand years
Hides bottomless chasms
From the sight of the living - immense depth
A key to foolish courage.

We're cursed in this cavern
While the undead invoke underworld
The candle light slowly burns out
Useless are all sacrifices.

The other side no longer exists
There will only be ice for ages
The altar can no longer give us messages
We have burned the other world!

Then comes a night of spiritual suicides
But we are not finished with the world
Ice crystals are destroying the sky
At last we see the remote boundaries.

Souls escaped from the prison of life
Will no longer rest in the ground
Matter itself evaporates in a moment of terror
In the name of the mightiest devil.

10) Vykoupení (Deliverance)

You live in chests filled with poison
While only death awaits you outside
It's still better
Than walking eternally through the middle of
Where ten thousand corpses decompose.

You fight your anxiety by fighting illusions,
But the future is always uncertain,
You don't know what to do
With the thoughts in your head
- When impure power arises.

Molten gold drones through the riverbeds
In the same way as the blood inside us
It is only a matter of time before it overflows
A poisoned spring,
A slumbering wrath.

On the other side
Beyond the burning hell
Deliverance is waiting - why not now?
Meaningless life
Is bathed in black light
The one and only okkult black!

11) Útok (Attack)

(Dedicated to Anton Szandor LaVey)

Two thousand years we atone for something
We have never done,
Two thousand years we suffer for someone,
We have never seen.

Here and now!
We decompose alive.
Here and now!
Misery, death and boredom!

He who says "you can't"
Is my mortal enemy,
Now he will learn what he has forbade,
Small, subtle attack begins!

The old, lame dog must be eaten
By his own children,
For it is they who will
Under the banner of strength
Rule this world!

Here and now -
Alpha and Omega!
Here and now -
Fate in your hands!

Faith, that tortures, will likely destroy
Its victims,
Your saviour we will hang by his feet -
Already he sways in the wind!

Here and now -
You will see the holy son!
Here and now -
His candle burns out!

Jilemnický Okultista (The Jilemnice Occultist)

1) Overture

2) Mezi kopci cesta je klikatá... (Among the Hills a Winding Way...)

Atrament:
Among the hills a winding way,
I am moving toward the education
That may be a patch to my gaps
My face is already full of happiness!

The path of knowledge is a thorny one,
How can I separate the wheat from the chaff?
The tower of a castle is welcoming me from afar
With a copper crenelation.

I have already traveled far,
Behold a wooden tavern
And a sign saying: "Zum Spiritus"
Even the name sounds so well!

My baggage here, so heavy
And full of books
Take it all upstairs, please,
I want to sleep in the attic...

And to a table carry fast,
I ate last in Prague,
And also bring some alcohol
To lift up the mood!

Who is this coming to sit next to me?
Calling me by my own name?
A nearly hundred year old woman
An outrage, I say!

And then the cards spread out on the table
I suddenly see
In this room full of smoke
Of clean hemp!

Consternation mine
How she knows my past
But I want to know perfectly
What the future will bring!

Fortune Teller:
"Here is the king, and here is the knave."

Atrament:
"What does this mean?"

Fortune Teller:
"Some lord of noble rank will probably kick your butt."

Atrament:
"And what comes next?"

Fortune Teller:
"If you order spirits
We will know quickly
If you'll end up with your head on a chopping block
Or with fortune in your hands!"

Atrament:
I have had enough already of your nonsense,
I am an occultist!
I can not read cards,
But I know what to do with my life!

And in the bar room - a sign:
"Et Zum Spiritus Tuo"
There I will go with my glass
Sing a duet now!

Then like lightning from a clear sky
I'm intoxicated by a figure of beauty
In my sight the brilliance of her eyes
And the sharp shapes of her hips!

We stayed awake the whole night
Even in the morning the beds were still empty
As the table offered us enough
For our conjurations!

3.) Já nechci mnoho trápiti... (I Don’t Want, Sirs, to Pester...)

"Satrapold":
I don't want, sirs, to pester
Your ears,
When it's time to drink
And pay off our debts to thirst.

But let me tell you just one thing
Something I need to say
Before I enter the castle chambers
Together with you:

I am your captain from now on
And my quest is,
To give my word to the laws
Where crime casts a shadow.
I am Von Satrapold, as my father was
I am also known in court,
Where high society pays a tribute to me,
I like to confess!

How beautiful the decoration is
Belgian velvet on the walls!
Before the glass is full
We crack down on that rabble!

My vesture is of silk
And I want to say boldly
That we'll play a trick on that devil
So that he snivels in a cell!

chorus of drunken officers:
He is our captain from now on
And his quest is,
to give his word to laws
Where crime casts a shadow,
He is Von Satrapold, as his father was
He is also known at court,
Where high society pays a tribute to him
So long may he live!

4.) Kol prostírá se temný les... (A Dark Forest Spreads All Around...)

Calamaria (in the forest):
A dark forest spreads all around
Yet with a bright flame
The joy of love shines in my heart
And a chalice of happiness.
Our love makes us one,
It is of great importance,
That occult forces of nature
Both of us have mastered.

In wise books there is written
That at the sunset
Something unheard of
Will happen in the wide astral plane.

When darkness surrounds us
In its magical veil,
I sing a passionate song
To Atrament!

But what does this noise mean?
Who disturbs the silence of the night?
That crash was horrible,
As if someone fell off a horse!
I curiously rush to see
If could I be of help
He injured himself badly
And now is moaning into the night.

All wounds I heal easily
As the blue-blooded man
Just escapes his death
His horse did not!

"Satrapold" (woken up-:
Give me your little hand,
I know my way suddenly,
The shadows of patulous oaks invite us,
I want to be all yours!

The more of a mystery you seem to me
The more my favour grows
Affluence does not appeal to me any more
And solitude drags me down.
While I don't know why you are refusing
My innocent accompaniment,
Hopefully you will come to visit the castle one day,
Accept my invitation!

5.) Ten dvanácterák zmizel v houšť... (That Magnificent Deer Has Vanished...)

"Satrapold":
That magnificent deer has vanished in the bush,
Even my comrades are not to be found
To not let my courage lescape me
I will blow the horn:

Only echoes resound from the deep
And my horse below me,
Is really not
A cheerful companion!

And to complete the tragedy
I fall from my horse,
Here though destiny is on my side,
That I did not break my neck.

Now I am waking up from a heavy blackout,
Escaping death by a hair's breadth,
When suddenly from the depths of the forest
Walks a charming girl, ha ha ha...

Just tell me you are not a dream;
I can't tell if I am awake or asleep?
So fascinated by this vision;
Am I in heaven or not?

Even if death's breath had come
And shortened my life,
I would not find more precious a jewel
In this world in a thousand years!

6.) Můj hejtmane... (My Captain...)

Groom Blether:
My captain and the lord of the land
of Jilemnice
From this servant of yours accept
This new horse.

"Satrapold":
It's good enough, it's good enough.
I see that this groom of mine
Has a flair for this!

Groom Blether:
Oh your Highness, I'm not worthy of
that noble commendation,
I always only serve you humbly
As my strength allows.

"Satrapold":
It's good enough, it's good enough.
But let's be honest - at a court
It would not really be a gem.

Now let's not lose time, when our duty calls
To acquaint ourselves with this displeasing rubbish.
We are here to take care of the peace and the good,
And one does infringe, who breaks the laws.

My uniform is decorated
In medals,
We will enforce by all means
The heavy fist of the law!

Groom Blether:
There in the pub of Spiritus
A suspicious stranger who sojourns,
His whole body reeks of crime,
Hideous those conjurations.

And the daughter of the proprietor
by the name of Calamaria,
Does not skimp on debauchery,
If she gives him a drink!

And look, there he is sitting in the corner
With enormous joy,
His head on the table,
And vomit on his sleeve.

"Satrapold":
Young man, I want to believe,
And I am glad, too,
That you do not lose your appetite
In the land of Krakonoš?!

Atrament:
They will never steal my appetite
And speaking of which
You have a true gourmet
In front of you!
Now see, you sober monster,
I am an occultist,
Why do you even care,
What I do all day?
I do not give a damn about those offices
That would like to govern me,
I choose my principles by myself,
On how to live my own life!

Groom Blether:
You dirty rabble,
How do you speak to your lord
As even the frogs in the swamp
Do not dare to!
Here I have a reason, more than good
To put him in the manor jail -
For insults and mutiny
He has to pay!

"Satrapold":
And what else - he gave away,
Being delirious,
That by occultism he caused,
He confessed his own guilt.

And in the presence of this lady
To act like a brute;
I will settle that with you too, Blether,
When we arrive at the castle!

7.) Já mizérií osudu jsem pronásledován... (By the Misery of Fate I’m Haunted...)

Groom Blether:
By the misery of fate I’m haunted
And my soul is pervaded by doubts
Like worm-eaten flesh I only pretend to live,
The offspring of my happiness has ceased to grow long ago.
I enjoyed the great benevolence of the captain
And always stood next to him with the best intentions,
But now dishonest forces shove between us -
That is the reason that my lord pummeled me on the carpet.

And my despair is doubled and fulfilled
When the flame of my revenge flared up
When I was hopelessly searching for a key to the occultist's hearts.
Atrament from Spiritus threw me out of the pub.
To Železný Brod, two and half hours away,
I know a great tavern there
And alone I will find a little table in a corner,
There I will bury my dreams in alcohol!

By the misery of fate I’m haunted
My body is already penetrated by alcohol,
Like a blind badger I laze around the forest
And the moon shines silver on the river.
The sound of the rapids is a deadly noise,
The voice of my soul is suddenly the same.
Remember me sometime in Jilemnice
Because here the path of Blether ends!

8.) Ach, pane vzácný... (Oh, My Precious Sir...)

Calamaria (in the castle):
Oh my precious sir, do you remember
Your tempting words?
You invited me - so I am here
But with me a request which agonizes me.
It may not be a modest one
But one thing is sure,
I will be obliged to you.

"Satrapold":
Since without you, it seems
I would be buried,
Here every request of yours
Is a command to me.

Calamaria:
I do not ask for precious manes,
Nor expensive jewels,
But only the freedom to be given back
to Atrament.

"Satrapold":
He is there to pay for
His tongue so foolish...

Calamaria:
He was drunk - and I am guilty,
For the glasses that polluted his mind.

"Satrapold":
So let it be, thy will be done,
When Satrapold gives his word.
But you have to promise me -
That he ends his malediction!

This afternoon I want to take you
On a horse with me,
So I won't get lost in the forest,
And to have your accompaniment.

Calamaria:
I suppose you want to have
A secret appointment with me?
That reminds you of the scene
When you fell off the horse.

Even if it seems strange,
I will gladly fulfill your wish,
If that helps Atrament
From the dark cell.

9.) Že vše je podle mého přání... (Everything is Just on my Whim...)

Poebeldorf:
Everything is just on my whim
And all goes excellently,
This very day,
I will pass the borders!
Today is the fifteenth,
I will arrive at Cairo in a week,
I will enjoy a life
Carefree and in splendour.

Even without Blether I can saddle up my horse,
And with gold, silver and diamonds
Pack up my baggage!
And then there is that Atrament,
Who has wanted to be my rival,
It is a little joke,
That I should release him.

Calamaria:
So open please without delay
The door to the jail,
I have a key to happiness
Hanging on that chain!

Poebeldorf:
Ha! That doesn't bother me any more
That book of laws,
On the twenty second of October,
Cairo will welcome me!

Calamaria:
Should I believe this,
Or is this yet another illusion?
The walls of the cell
Are painted with signs.

These are medial drawings
And I can read the truth in them.
Primordial apparitions
Can decipher everything.

You are a criminal and trickster,
And your real name sounds something like Pobuda.
You took advantage of the captain's trust
And with Jilemnice's treasure, escape to Cairo!

Poebeldorf:
God damn,
The plan is revealed,
I did not
Count on this.

Suddenly the land below
Seems hot,
I must be quick over the mountains,
Before the real captain arrives!

10. Sláva, sláva, pane hejtmane (Glory, Glory, Herr Hauptmann)

Chorus of the occultists:
Glory, glory, glory, Herr Hauptmann,
Let the whole city welcome you.
What happened, we hope will never be repeated,
And we can say it could have been a pretty costly plight.

Spiritus:
Your Highness and your whole retinue,
Believe me, I have much to celebrate
Because of my happy reunion
With my only daughter,
Drinks are free today at Spiritus!

Satrapold:
My dear occultists, now my gratitude is to you,
Because it is almost certain that I was endangered myself.
That treacherous Poebeldorf
Wanted to become the new captain,
And I was meant to be the false -
That is to be punished!

I do not want, sirs, to pester
Your ears,
For the tales of an adventurer.
But let me tell you just one thing,
Something I need to say,
Before I lock Poebeldorf
In the manor jail!

I am your captain from now on,
And my quest is,
To give my word to the laws
Where crime casts a shadow.
I am Von Satrapold, as my father was,
I am also known in court,
Where high society pays a tribute to me,
I like to confess!

11) Suchardův dům (v Nové Pace) (Sucharda’s House (In Nová Paka))

Copied from a façade:
Oh I, wretch, rambling around this whole world,
For our fatherland, god did not give bread to its children.
Above all the wealth, above all the estates,
Let mother's words be always the dearest!

Hereunto our nation, if it spares its history,
No silver, no gold, no welfare just now,
But what is precious to your heart, is what is precious to your heart!

Art in fortune - embellishment, art in misfortune - refuge!

Till we have strength, let's be attentive to our work so some memory is left behind us!
He who doesn't like my house paid for with my money,
Should show his own house with his money!

People used to plant trees for us, so let's plant too!

Morbid Knocking is on Hiatus

2009-06-15T23:41:00.002-04:00

For the time being, we are putting Morbid Knocking on the back burner for a while. We hope to return in a few months' time with occasional updates, but our current focus is to work on content for a printed fanzine which we hope will eventually come to fruition some time next year, if we can muster up the motivation and time.

Interview with John Brenner (Revelation/Against Nature) - Part III

2009-05-31T14:00:00.004-04:00

At last, we present part III of our interview with John Brenner, concluding the marathon of questions that he unwittingly embarked on with me beforehand. In this part, John discusses a wide range of topics, from the origins of the name Against Nature and artistic criticism to recalling the early days of the Maryland doom scene, as well as the current state of doom metal across the nation, culminating in several festivals, including two of his own. We discuss recording labels, including Shadow Kingdom Records, as well as Bland Hand Records, his digital label, through which all Against Nature material, as well as a wealth of material from other bands, is distributed. We even managed to talk about downloading, and Nigro Mantia, an obscure Danish metal band from the mid 80s who released one demo tape, and yet somehow came to influence John's writing. I would like to take this time to publicly thank Mr. Brenner for having the patience to answer my excessive amount of questions and for being the first (of hopefully many) victims of my interviewing capabilities. So without further ado, here is the conclusion of our first interview here at Morbid Knocking, in its entirety. We hope that you have enjoyed reading it and appreciated the thought and care that we have put into our questions. We also hope that you appreciate the equal amount of thought and care that the subject of our interview has put into his answers.

The name Against Nature is parallel with the French novelist Huysman’s À rebours, which is of course most commonly translated as Against Nature. A fine novel in its own right, but nonetheless. Was this conscious to you when you chose that title for the track on Never Comes Silence? Why did you choose this title for your project once you reemerged to the music scene? It certainly feels appropriate to me given the nature of the band and some of the lyrics to be named after a novel that is often referred to as having “no structure at all.”

Yes, the title is taken directly from Huysman's novel. I also like the translation Against the Grain. There's something in that title that strikes a chord with me, not only about nature and natural and what those words can mean, but also how to go "against the grain" is the opposite of what Lao Tzu suggests in his Tao Te Ching, a book that's been a part of my life for a long time.

I'm purposely contrary in so many ways, just to be contrary. Others call me stubborn; someone said I take the contrary stance out of spite or pride. Maybe that's true. But there's a freedom in rebelling, in being contrary, even if only for the sake of it. There's something of Dostoevsky in all of this, too, especially in The Brothers Karamazov. However, there's also something wrong with not following one's nature or the nature of things (to borrow from Lucretius!). If it's a conscious movement away from nature, does that make it right or better than an unthinking movement? I don't know what human nature is, so it's hard to decide.

All of this was going through my head at the time we formed Against Nature. Besides all that, we wanted a connection to the old band, to the old music, something that would keep us grounded in why we played this kind of music in the first place. I'm still finding new meanings in the title of the song and the band, and these lead me to new meanings as to why we make music at all. That's such a deceptive thing to say, that Huysman's novel has "no structure at all," isn't it? It's contained between two covers, it starts and ends somewhere, it fits on a shelf. It's not life--it's literature. Saying such a thing is like saying "what I'm saying doesn't mean anything." Ha. I think there's a structure to what Bert, Steve, and I do as musicians, even if we can't see the whole structure at once. Sometimes we think life has no structure at all, but maybe we're wrong about that. I'd like to know.

This novel also just so happens to bring us to the topic of artistic criticism, a topic which I understand is dear to you. You run a feature on the Bland Hand Records website called Speak Critique, which features questions and answers by music reviewers, who can, whether with or against their will, be said to be art critics. You ask them both formal and conceptual questions about the nature, practice, and legitimacy of artistic criticism. Can you discuss briefly what artistic criticism means to you and what role you think that it does and should play? This is by no means limited to music only. What is your critical background? Do you have any particular critics from the past whose approach or ideology particularly resonates with you? Have you yourself ever tried your hand at artistic criticism?

If criticism is meant to help us understand a work in a new, deeper, or interesting way, then that's the role it should play. Some criticism is more about the critic than about the work at hand; the purpose of other criticism is political or social. These don't interest me at all--I want to understand and appreciate art on terms that expand my life, make it bigger than it is. The best criticism can do this. The worse panders to trendy Continental (or other agenda-mongering) philosophy fakers, or pretends to look down on art from some lofty position it has no claim to, or merely strikes a pose so the critic looks handsome, dressed up in jargon and gibberish.

Criticism and I have been engaged in a lifelong battle! And if we talk about music criticism, here we find some of the most bankrupt offenders, especially when the critic expresses the useless notion that everything is "taste." What I mean is, if a review of a record is only about what the critic likes or dislikes, then what good is it? If it's just a matter of preferring chocolate over vanilla, then...good for them. Such a preference can't feed me, like the art itself does. I want to learn to see other facets of music and art, to understand the deeper currents that run through both the art and me. Good critics can do this.

In the early days of Revelation, nearly every reviewer dumped on us for not playing fast enough, or rock enough, or whatever. But few really helped me to understand what it was about what we played that caressed souls...or repelled them. So we simply kept going, doing whatever we liked, without worrying what the "critics of taste" thought. I don't think it's any different these days, though I've been fortunate enough to know a few passionate people who write about music (such as those featured in "Speak Critique"). These people teach me about music and help me to understand it, and for that, I thank them.

My brushes with literary criticism have rarely helped me to grow, for all the reasons I mentioned. Trendy movements in thought come and go, but the art itself remains. It's the author's words and ideas, the musician's music, the painter's touch--their form, content, technique, drive, the expressions of their souls...these I want to understand. As far as literary critics or those who write about books, those whose work resonates in me, writers classical and contemporary have taught me much: Plato, Aristotle, T.S. Eliot, Eva Brann, Northrop Frye, Scott Buchanan, Mortimer Adler, A.C. Bradley, Jacob Klein. It would be a long list, never complete!

If by "artistic criticism," you mean writing about something better to understand it, then I've written many, many things in my struggles with books, art, music. I'm a critic of my own soul first. (By "soul" I mean whatever it is that makes us us.) Through reading and listening and seeing, I'm hoping to learn what other souls can teach me about themselves, about myself, and about souls in general.

I really appreciate you taking the time to indulge me in my literary interests, as it can be a heavy topic, but I hope that you enjoyed answering those questions, if for not other reason than hopefully for the mere fact that you don’t get asked such questions often. Perhaps it would be best to get back “on topic,” though, and revisit your musical environment in the early days.

Writing about something helps me to understand what I think about it, so this small digression has been my pleasure. I wonder what your thoughts are on the same topics, too.

Perhaps at a later date you can interview me on the subject, then, haha. I did quite enjoy your responses and found myself agreeing with just about everything you said, though I often find myself struggling with the distinction between what really makes a work “good” and what makes an educated observer call something good, and whether or not they’re the same or different. However, let’s get back to the past. The DC/Maryland Doom Metal scene is known throughout the world (or at least the metal world) as being arguably the most flourishing place for this style of music, both in terms of quality and quantity. Pentagram, of course, was the forerunner of the entire scene, and later The Obsessed, but the 80s saw the rise of Asylum, Internal Void, Iron Man, Death Mask, and, of course, Revelation. Were you particularly active in the underground scene in the early days, supporting fanzines, writing to penpals and fans, tape trading, etc.? Was there a sense of camaraderie among the bands during those days? I know that you played shows with Asylum, from whom you take or share great influence, and Josh Hart was later featured on Unorthodox’s Balance of Power following his work in Revelation. Do you have any sense of nostalgia for these times?

In the early 80s, I had lots of bootleg cassettes, things I taped myself at concerts or from the radio, and bootleg records I bought at stores. Some fanzines were available in the record stores, so they introduced me to many, many underground metal bands. But Rob Michael (Have Mercy) introduced me to real tape trading, where you'd type or hand-write your tape list and send it to people. He let me copy everything I wanted from his collection, and that got me going. Then I bought tons of demos from bands who were featured in fanzines and magazines. I'd just write to the band if they sounded interesting, maybe send some money and hope to get something back. I usually did! You could say I was incredibly active in the underground scene back then, from the Have Mercy days through the late 80s and early 90s. Revelation had dozens of penpals, and we used to sell hundreds of demos (many more than any Against Nature release!). I probably sold and gave away 500 copies of Face Reality.

Death Mask wasn't around for too long, but they were playing Black Sabbath-influenced music before we were. They were our good friends from the same neighborhood. Dave "Hoss" Sherman introduced us to so much good music, including The Obsessed, Pentagram, and Asylum, in 1984-85. Revelation's debut show was with Asylum and Death Mask. I first met Dream Death in 1987, and we played shows with them and later Penance throughout that time. We met Internal Void around 1988 and used to play shows with them in the late 80s, and later Iron Man, in the early 90s. I think there was a kind of camaraderie among us--we all liked similar music and took the same bands as our starting point. We loved each other's music. Nostalgia...no, I don't feel a "return ache" for those times. You can never go home. But I do think fondly of the shows and friends and fans, the ridiculous gigs at skating rinks and taco houses, in public parks, at parties. Good times.

Interestingly, you now share a label with many of these bands in Shadow Kingdom Records, run by Tim McGrogan, a great appreciator of traditional doom metal. He recently reissued Asylum’s The Earth is the Insane Asylum of the Universe and Death Mask’s Exhumed compilation, and is suppose to release a new album. He has also just unveiled Iron Man’s new album in May entitled I Have Returned. He reissued your newest album, Release, following issues with your previous label, Leaf Hound Records. Are you happy with your experiences working with Tim thus far? Do you intend to continue working with him, perhaps releasing the next Revelation album, or rescuing the reissues previously put out by Leaf Hound of the first two albums? I have been following his label since it was a distro called Evil Legend Records a few years back, so I’m really glad to see his success in getting this label off the ground and being able to work with so many fine people and incredible musicians.

Tim made everything easy for us: we sent a master disc and art, and a few weeks later Release was out. He's so enthusiastic about what we do as Revelation and Against Nature, and he takes great care in his releases. He's also good at spreading promotional discs around. We're going to release the next Revelation disc with him late this year: The tentative title is For the Sake of No One.

I'm not sure about re-re-releasing the first two Revelation discs because I'm unsure where we stand with Leaf Hound. That is, though we don't have a paper contract with Leaf Hound, we have a gentleman's agreement. That means as much to me as a legally binding contract. So we'll wait this year to see what happens with Leaf Hound. If too much time passes, then we'll do what's best for us, after a reasonable attempt to keep our promise to the label.

I believe that I can answer this question myself, but for posterity’s sake, are you happy with ‘the current state of doom metal,’ as silly a question as that may sound? In 2007, you and Josh Hart assembled a 3 day festival called Doom or be Doomed (a phrase you inadvertently coined as I understand), which saw the reunion of several classic doom metal acts like Blood Farmers and Unorthodox, and even included an appearance by Bobby Liebling, in addition to featuring several younger up and coming bands. This past year, you and Josh put together the Declaration of Doom festival featuring a few of your label mates in Ogre, Iron Man, and Pale Divine, alongside yourselves, Valkyrie, Orodruin, and others. Your label features the works of many promising newer bands. Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume that you like what you see out there. Would you care to articulate your views on today’s ‘scene,’ both worldwide and in the US in particular?

Absolutely, I like what I see! There's so much good heavy music to listen to, and I'm lucky to call many of the people in the best bands my friends. As far as a "scene," I don't know. We just make as many friends as we can and try to help those friends any way possible. That's what Bland Hand Records is all about, too. It's a small circle because too many bands are cutthroat, "business-minded," or just don't care what anyone else is doing enough to help other bands. Those attitudes go against everything I love about playing music for people, but I can't control them. We just keep away from them if we can and refuse to play along. Hell...it's just guys playing music that only a handful of people enjoy, you know? Do we need to act as if we're all CEOs of Microsoft? What we do isn't so important, really, so why not just have fun, make good music and friends, and enjoy it while we can?

For our two festivals, DoBD and DoD, Josh and I decided to ask our friends, old and new, to join us in what we thought of as a big party. Then we invited everyone to come watch all of us play! We decided not to ask any bands whose music we didn't love--we weren't going to ask bands we didn't like or didn't know, just to have a "mixture of styles" or whatever. And that was the key to the success of both festivals. The festivals weren't about posing and jockeying for position and all that crap. We didn't even call anyone a "headliner" because we thought any of those bands could have headlined. And we paid every band more than Revelation ever made for a single show (Revelation and Chowder played for free at both because it fit our philosophy for the festivals). We wanted to treat everyone, bands and fans alike, how we've always wanted to be treated as musicians and fans. Both festivals were shows we would have killed to see even if we weren't playing. If there weren't so many other festivals going on this year (Templars of Doom, Born Too Late, SHoD), we'd do it again. Maybe next year.

As an aside, I guess I am the one who started the "doom or be doomed" saying. It's on the covers of our cassette demo tapes from 1987, and I was probably writing it as a sign-off in letters before that. It started as a joke, a funny alternative to "thrash or be thrashed," which was something underground bands used to say in the mid-80s. Have Mercy used that phrase as a sign-off in interviews and letters. So I came up with "doom or be doomed" because I thought it was clever, an inside joke between Andy, Steve, and me. We used it in the early Revelation days to help people understand where we were coming from, musically, in the underground metal scene. Maybe someone came up with the saying before I did; I guess you'd have to find that someone else had coined it, before early 1987 or so, in writing. I still think it's funny and not so serious. Think of all the variations people never used: "Grunge or Be Grunged," "Goth or Be Gothed," "Prog or Be Progged." Wasted comic opportunities, there.

I was fortunate enough to have been able to attend the Declaration of Doom show this past year, and it was definitely the most enjoyable concert I’ve been to. I really think that has a lot to do with the way that the show was planned and the circle of likeminded people who are all a part of it. You really do get that sense that it’s kind of like a big party, just a big gathering of friends who just happened to bring their gear with them. I think the US is rather fortunate to have so many excellent bands in this genre who are more easily able to interconnect with each other, and most importantly, with the fans, with the increasing importance of the internet and digital media. I definitely would be completely oblivious to this entire scene were it not for the internet. On that note, you have seemingly accepted and welcomed the new age and new medium of musical communication, diving headfirst into the realm of digital distribution. You not only offer your own work for free download, but you also run a digital distribution record label, Bland Hand Records, which features such acts as Iron Man, Oversoul, Dwell Within, Argus, Chowder, and Blizaro. How has this new medium shaped the way that you view music distribution today? Surely it must garner a sense of greater possibilities, but is there also a resistance to such a seemingly impersonal interaction with the work? Do you object to those who use illegal digital media as their sole source of music, or do you believe that digital media is more of a complimentary resource that could never replace a more personal experience of sitting down with an LP?

The Internet has made things possible that we couldn't have dreamed of in the 80s when we first played this music. Specifically, Steve, Bert, and I are now free: free of labels, free of distribution outlets, free of advertising, free of packaging, free of waiting, free of relying on others, free of all the things that stifle creativity. I think this freedom is why we've been able to create so much music these past few years. We don't need to market anything, we don't need to wait until others decide our fate, we don't need to wait for the "right time" to release a record. We can now just make music, as much as we want, whenever we want. Will fewer people know about the music this way, this digital way? I don't know. We make it available and we tell people about it. The rest is beyond our control. But I do know the Internet and digital distribution has liberated us as musicians.

Some people think digital media can't replace vinyl or CDs. That's not for me to argue one way or the other. However, we see hundreds of downloads of our music in the few months after a release; in contrast, it takes much longer for me to sell 100 CDs of the same release. I don't think we'd sell more if the music weren't available for free download, either. On the contrary, I think we'd sell even fewer discs. I've come to terms with the reality that only a few people like what we do; it's just not popular. But the music is out there, and if people come to it, we're happy. If they don't, we'll still make music.

Honestly, I don't think downloads are any less personal than "hard media." All I care about is the music, the sounds that make waves in the air, that vibrate bones in my ear, that move my brain and my soul. That's the personal part for me. The rest does nothing for me as a fan or as a musician. I don't care if no one ever sees a photo of us; actually, I prefer it that way. I don't care if our artwork is "less metal" than something else, if we don't have an image or a brand name or some other way to trick people into thinking we're better than we really are.

If people like our music, I want it to be because the music is good and not because we look or dress a certain way, or the packaging of our records attracts people. If we fail, it's because our music fails. If we succeed, it's for the same reason. That's what matters to me.

The only philosophy behind Bland Hand Records is to make available the music my friends want to share to anyone who wants to hear it. I like the egalitarianism of downloadable music: everyone can hear it. Images, lyrics, credits, other content--it's all on the website for anyone to view. Maybe 20 years from now, we'll see a different medium by which to share information and music. It's no matter: good music will still be good music. I welcome any medium that connects music and people.

I admit to having an attachment to the aesthetic aspect of playing physical media; however, “I welcome any medium that connects music and people”…I cannot disagree with that in the slightest. Especially from the perspective of the artist who wishes for his art to be heard, it is difficult to object to more people experiencing your craft. When you first started playing metal again, did you plan from the beginning for it to be on your own terms, or did you shop some early Against Nature songs around to labels to see if there was any interest? Did you plan to fund this endeavor on your own? If not, did you initially intend to be reliant upon label support to fund your recordings? I have a feeling that you didn’t anticipate having recorded so much material and released it by yourself in 4 short years.

Initially, we asked around a bit to see if anyone was interested in Against Nature. Everyone, without exception, ignored us. It was humiliating. So we took charge, and I came up with the idea to make everything available for free on a web site. We knew from the start we wouldn't make money from this, but the choice was between acting like a musician and making music, or acting like a rock star (or a business) and worrying about money and fame and all that. There's no way we would have recorded all this music if we were fettered to a label. And there's no way a label would have released all of it if we had recorded it. Do painters sit around waiting for each painting to sell before painting another? Or do they paint because painting is what they do? Why should music be any different? Why should music be an industry or a business? Business either stifles creativity or enslaves it to its own end of profit. Music should be the free expression of souls.

So, releasing music on Bland Hand allows us to be free. We never planned to produce music in such quantities or with such frequency. But once we saw it was happening and that it could happen, we decided to go with it. It can't last forever, so we see no reason to restrain ourselves. I've never felt so satisfied, challenged, and potent as a musician. I think Bert and Steve would say the same.

Well I for one am certainly glad that things have turned out the way that they have, in that it has allowed you to create a wealth of excellent music. Of course a larger fan base would be a good thing, but like you have acknowledged yourself, the style of music that you play is “just not popular.” The most that can be done is to share your music and to spread the word; I try to do my part. Maybe this interview will bring in a few more listeners, maybe a few more owners of Against Nature and Revelation material. With that said, I would like to take this time to thank you for entertaining my perhaps at times excessively wordy and out of left field questions, to which you have given very thoughtful and illuminating answers. But before you go, however, there is one more thing that I would like you to respond to, and that is the following. You have on occasion mentioned the great Danish band Nigro Mantia as an influence throughout your musical career, which culminated in Against Nature covering their classic “Death Romance,” which is available for download in your Miscellaneous Songs folder on your website. Can you discuss the impact that this band had on you? How did it come about that this obscure demo band was such a great influence on you? It would be great to see this material receive a proper rerelease some day.

Maybe this sounds odd, but I include Nigro Mantia with Rush, Black Sabbath, Asylum, and Trouble as the strongest influences on Revelation, especially in the early years. From the first time I heard their demo, which I got in a tape trade in 1986 or 1987, something resonated in me. Maybe it was all the rhythm changes, or the obscure lyrics, or the unique quality of the singing and riffing. They were willing to follow their vision, even if it was far outside the mainstream of heavy metal at the time. Their music was as heavy as Trouble's but as odd, in some ways, as Frank Zappa's. And it was deadly serious. We used to cover "Death Romance" from about 1988-1991, and some people thought it was a Revelation song. I should have lied and said it was, because I wished it were. Some day soon, I hope we can cover and record the other two songs on the tape. I probably stole half the riffs from that tape for Revelation songs over the years. Maybe in the coming years I can steal the other half!

And I wouldn’t mind if you do! Finally, in closing, is there any aspect about yourself or your musical projects that you rarely have the opportunity to discuss in interviews that you would like to bring up? Is there anything not discussed that would be useful (or useless! Walter Pater and the Aesthetics vehemently opposed utility in art, so who am I to protest?) for a reader to know in order to gain insight into your work?

Ha...if we're anything, it's useless. That's the way it should be: I think music, literature, and art should use us, and not the other way around. If there's anything I hope for, it's that people will give our music a close listen, give it a chance to unfold and to reveal itself. There's a lot going on; we put so much thought into every song, so many layers, just as I do with the lyrics. I hope each listener will be rewarded in some way.

Thanks, Matthew, for this wonderful chance to answer your intriguing and deep questions. I've certainly worn out my welcome! And thank you to everyone for giving us the benefit of the doubt, for the time it takes to listen to Revelation and Against Nature or read the lyrics or interviews such as this, and for giving us the latitude to follow our musical vision.

Interview with John Brenner (Revelation/Against Nature) - Part II

2009-05-29T11:45:00.002-04:00

Presented here is part II of our interview with the guitarist/vocalist of Revelation and Against Nature, John Brenner. Whereas the first part focused largely on recounting the history behind Revelation, part II begins to look forward, taking up the story with the emergence of Against Nature, the band that Brenner formed in 2004 with the Revelation lineup that recorded Salvation's Answer. We discuss his return to the metal scene and how his approach has changed over the years, and how Against Nature provides a different avenue for exploration than Revelation. We also touch on the subject of lyrics and lyric matter and how they have come to be.

You eventually came back into metal music with the project Against Nature. How did this project come about initially? Were you approached? Did you approach anybody? Were there plans initially for you to rejoin Revelation instead of starting a new project, and if so, what were the speculations regarding how the lineup would be? I understand at one point it was discussed that Josh Hart would play guitar alongside you.

Sometime before the summer of 2004, I decided I wanted to play electric guitar, only for fun. So Bert lent me a guitar and practice amp. For some reason, I immediately began writing riffs, sometimes recycling things that were meant to be on the third Revelation record (I have a cassette of old Revelation riffs). I played them for Bert and Josh, and they were into maybe jamming for fun. Bert asked who would play drums, and I suggested Steve because he wasn't doing much with Revelation at the time. We got together and rehearsed...and it just felt right. We immediately took a different approach to everything: songwriting, rehearsing, envisioning the songs. It was exciting and we knew we were on to something again.

At first, I was going to join Revelation with Jim, Dennis, and Steve, but it never got off the ground. That's for the best, because Dennis is such a strong songwriter that I don't know if we could have worked together. One of us would have been frustrated. Then, Josh realized he already had a lot on his plate with two bands and his life. Besides, he had been playing other people's music forever, and I know he needs to play his own compositions. So we settled into the line-up of Bert, Steve, and me. I think it's worked out best this way: Dennis keeps making great music, first with Dwell Within and now with Memory Driven; Josh's Chowder is an amazing band. We're better for the separate bands because we're all following our vision.

That sort of preempts my next question, which is, do you see yourself ever working together with Dennis on a musical project, in any form? Obviously both of you are passionate, prolific, and strong-minded creative talents, so there could be an issue as you mentioned, but should the opportunity present itself to work together arises at some point in the future, would you consider it? The same question goes for Josh. Of course it is important for all three of you to explore your own creative avenues, but I see tremendous potential in some kind of informal musical project.

Honestly, I'd work with just about anyone, anytime. The difficult part isn't overcoming "creative differences" or whatever; it's getting schedules together. We could try working over the Internet (this worked well recently for Lord Vicar), but then I'm afraid we wouldn't have the motivation to finish anything. It's easy to put something on the backburner when nothing is at stake in completing it in good time. Josh and I have talked about finding someone with a film who needed a score that we would collaborate on music like that. But again, everyone has other ideas and obligations on their time.

When you came back to metal music, it was after a long period of change and, surely, reevaluation. Would you consider yourself to some degree a different person than you were then, and how have these changes in yourself changed the band as it is today?

I think I'd need a high level of self-knowledge to know whether and how I've changed over the years. That's something I don't claim to have. I think of myself as much different, but every day something happens, or I do something that makes me feel as if I were 19 again. It isn't a good feeling. Maybe you can close off parts of yourself and allow only certain parts to come through, but behind those doors I think the unwanted parts still wait for a crack to burst through. I hope I'm a different person; that was my goal. I'm not sure what it even means or if it's possible to be "a different person." I want to be whole and not splintered.

Our musical attitude is so much different these days than they were in the beginning. Whether this new attitude comes from maturity, ripeness, or defeatism, I can't say. Since the 80s and early 90s, our entire way of working has changed. In the older Revelation days, we would endlessly rehearse our set, rarely writing or recording new songs. We didn't see a purpose to it, for what would we do with the recordings? No one seriously wanted to release our music until Rise Above. It was so frustrating for me because when we did write new music, it took us forever to complete it. I think we wanted every note, every drum hit, to be perfect, as if that were possible. We wanted to know the songs inside and out before we recorded them. Such a stifling way to work! It just turned into an excuse not to do anything new; it took a tremendous mental effort to begin a song, to get everyone motivated to learn and endlessly rehearse it.

Today, we trust our ability to improvise and make things up as we record. We don't worry if every drum hit or beat, or every guitar, bass, and keyboard note is in perfect place. The feel of the music is more important than anything. But I don't mean we ever settle for a second-rate performance on record: we do work on the songs until we've done our best, doing as many takes as needed to get it right. We just don't worry if our best falls short of an impossible, soulless standard. We've learned to let go of the idea that we must know the songs perfectly before we press "record." That is, we work on the arrangements and the parts the entire time we're recording, changing things to suit the vision as we go along. Besides this, we concentrate almost solely on writing and recording now. Releasing our own music, for free, has allowed us the freedom to do whatever we wish. When we have shows coming up, we rehearse our set, but otherwise, when we get together, we're always working on something new.

If changes in me have brought about changes in the band, maybe the answer lies in these new approaches to our music.

This question would perhaps have been more prudent a year or so ago, but how do you navigate through the dichotomy that comes up in your songwriting periods between writing for Revelation and writing for Against Nature? I think it’s fair to say that the Against Nature material produced before your return to Revelation has more similarities to Revelation than your work with Against Nature since then, in large part, especially more recently with releases like Natural Blue, The First Rain, and Action at a Distance. Is it ever difficult now to distinguish an idea for a Revelation song from an idea for an Against Nature song, or is it more intuitive? Lastly, given the stature of the band, do you feel a greater sense of burden writing for Revelation given the expectations that go along with a Revelation record, and, conversely, is Against Nature a more liberating project to write for given its more open nature?

Recently, I've begun writing for the next Revelation record, and it's easy to know whether a song could go with the band. There's a sound, a feeling, certain note or chord progressions, that just feel like Revelation. Even something that stretches out, I can still tell in my gut if it's Revelation. As you mention, it's intuitive: it also involves the ears and heart and mind and soul. For Against Nature, anything goes, especially since Release came out. Against Nature can draw on any influence whatsoever: progressive rock, classical, jazz, soul, 70s rock. We do whatever we feel like doing at the moment. We have a lot of music inside us bursting to get out. It's absolutely liberating!

For Revelation, we've admitted to ourselves that people expect something of a certain nature. But I think those who like Revelation also expect something different from what everyone else is doing. It's wonderful that so many people accept the music for what it is, without complaint. We're now trying to find the balance between being true to ourselves and not letting people down in their expectations. Somewhere between progression and pandering is a mean.

There is one especially curious fact about your current work in Against Nature, and that is that you are unrelentingly prolific. It’s one thing to be free of label constraints and all of the red tape that comes with them, but it’s another thing entirely to consistently put out 2, 3, or more releases a year, and it’s something altogether amazing that each work is of such high quality. What does the prolificacy of Against Nature mean for the band? Is it a creative boon to be able to look back at your creative output from the past year and have so much material from which to judge where you have been, and in turn to see where you can go next? What does this prolificacy say about you? Do you feel like you are making up for lost time in a sense, given your decade-long absence from the scene?

Sometimes I think Bert and Steve must laugh at me when I rush at them every few months with, "So, I have two albums ready to go! When do we record?" And then I spring it on them that I'm not playing guitar, or I want Bert to play a horn section on guitar synthesizer, or I want Steve to play drums along to a sequencer. They always rise to the challenge, and their enthusiasm and open-mindedness only spurs me to challenge myself more. The only problem we have is coming up with a set list for our live shows. We haven't played a show yet this year, so that hasn't been a problem in a while. But we've been concentrating on music from "Descend" onward only, and our newest music isn't something we can play live without adding 8 more people to the band (That's supposed to be funny...but it's also true). We look back and ask, "What in the world do you want to play?" And then we have to learn the songs.

I don't know if we look back much; it seems we're always looking forward. At least I am. Sometimes it's dizzying. However, I do listen to our music constantly, all of it, because I want to learn from it--learn what works and what doesn't. And I enjoy hearing our records as I would enjoy listening to anything I like. I don't think, "oh, that's awful" often. Sometimes I hear something we've done, and I think, "that's great--it's exactly as it's supposed to sound." I do like our music; I'm not of those people who say, "I can't listen to anything I've done; I hate it." It's the opposite for me: I love what we do and how we've done it.

If we were making up for lost time, I think we caught up sometime around The Anxiety of Influence. We're ahead now, I guess! I don't want to be dying, and on my last day think, "why didn't I do more?" I want to think, "I did what I could." Ripeness is all. Let's get this music out before the rot sets in.

I think that’s a very healthy outlook on your situation. There’s no use regretting the past, except in so far as it helps prevent you from making the same mistakes. And I certainly agree that you have caught up. Against Nature has put out more music in 5 years than most bands do in a lifetime, so there’s nothing to regret. You have accumulated so much material, in fact, that on the Against Nature website, you have a Redux project in which you revisit older songs and give them new life by reinterpreting them in new ways. What originally inspired you to do this in such a formal way? Surely most artists feel some compelling desire to revisit their past works and do things differently, but how many actually do it? Rhetorically speaking, of course. This seems to me more of a literary ideal, as writers in my experience seem more attached to a concept of the ‘eternal evolution’ of their work and obsessively draft and revise their work, often even long after it’s published. Do you feel that you have a literary mind toward music, in some sense?

A "literary mind toward music"...that's such an interesting way to phrase it. We don't think of our records as "products," like can of soda or laundry detergent, so we're open to re-interpreting, re-imagining, re-forming all of our music. For "Redux," I wasn't thinking that the old versions were flawed and that these new versions are somehow better. It's more as if the old songs are themes and we recorded a few new variations on them. "Redux" was for fun, perhaps done as an exercise. I wish we could do more along those lines, but we've been so busy with our newest music lately.

Sometimes, I see one of my paintings on the wall, something I made years ago, and I think, "I should make this better." And sometimes I do. But there's a point at which I should really just leave it alone, let it be "flawed." Art isn't technology, and it doesn't need to progress in time the same way technology progresses. Music is like this. The technology I use to make music might progress, or I've learned how to use that technology in what seem to be "better" ways, but that doesn't mean I must use it to re-interpret our old music. If the mood strikes me, then I'll do it. If I always give my best and do the best with what I have, then I don't need to look back so often.

Something that I’m very interested in is your source of inspiration for your lyrics, both in the early days and today in Against Nature and Revelation. I think it’s safe to say that your lyrical approach has changed in some ways over the years. Your more recent lyrics tend toward the more modern and experimental. Are there any techniques or methods that you use to ‘generate’ lyrics, or seeds of lyrics, if you know what I mean? What was your approach to writing lyrics in the 80s and 90s, and are you happy with them?

My approach, I think, was more traditional in the 80s and 90s. That is, I just wrote from an emotional viewpoint, hiding private stories in abstract language. I guess it was in self-defense, to say things without really saying them to protect myself from them, to reveal only enough to hint at what I was talking about. Hmm...maybe they're not that subtle! Those words all came from difficult times in my life, full of frustration, self-loathing, anger, despair. I don't think that's something to be happy about. But artistically, I'm neither happy not unhappy with them--they are what they are.

These days, I use many techniques to generate lyrics. I'm not concerned with narratives or anything traditional with lyrics. I don't have a story to tell. Instead, the words themselves fascinate me, the power of them, the multi-layered nature of English, how you can say 3 things with one phrase and evoke 3 more, the resonance of meanings wrapped in loaded and personal words. My lyrics today are full of quotes from other writers, snippets of phrases from Homer, Shakespeare, hundreds of other writers, some altered to fit my needs, all taken out of context to ring out new meanings. These "found" fragments I often combine with my own words, fragments from my journals or poems, copied and pasted into a new design that says something I find meaningful. Maybe words, quotes, found passages are like my musical instruments: I didn't build them or invent them or create them, but I use them to say something in my own voice. And I'm free to modify them so I can say something that's mine.

Can you give any specific examples of inspiration for your lyrics? “Long After Midnight” is, for example, taken from the Ray Bradbury short story I presume, as is The Anxiety of Influence taken from Harold Bloom’s critical books. Action at a Distance is taken from a physics concept. How much lyrical inspiration do you take from literature and other such fields?

Sometimes only the title was the inspiration, as with the Ray Bradbury story. Sometimes it's my interpretation of the ideas, as with Harold Bloom's book title. I think all of my inspiration comes from literature and science these days. But what is inspiration? It's the first breath, that first cry of life. After that first smack on the ass, you're on your own as an artist! I think I'm all over the place with where I find the materials for lyrics and poetry. So many things interest me--physics, philosophy, classical literature, astronomy, music, painting. Sometimes a phrase from somewhere gives me a title, and then I find or create things that fit the title in a vague way. I'm constantly revising, re-thinking, re-wording the lyrics to make them a cosmos, a whole. And sometimes it's unconscious. That is, the words often surprise me with what they could mean, the possibilities in them. I like to be surprised this way. Often, I don't know what something I've written could mean until long after the lyrics are finished. They evolve, along with me. I create them in such personal ways, so they resonate inside and outside me. Even the most abstract of them often have their beginning in some event in my life, something with an important meaning for me.

All of the allusions in the words...I want the reader to think of my words and meanings and the "original" at the same time. If I quote a snippet from Aeschylus and use it in an out-of-context way to create my own meaning, I also have the original meaning and context in mind at the same time. Some combination of what I mean and what Aeschylus means is my artistic intent. And I think the best writers do the same thing--when Aeschylus quotes Homer, he wants you to think of Homer's purpose along with his own purpose. There's a whole cloth, a cosmic wholeness, a wonderful unbroken tradition in doing that. We're not islands of originality, whatever "original" is supposed to mean. Every writer before us looks over our shoulders as we write. I don't find that "anxiety of influence" stifling. It's invigorating! It builds my confidence. I want to be a great writer; I want to be a great person. Half my life is gone, but I'm still wanting and hoping.

Oh...I think you wanted other examples! Rather than as supplying the whole meaning, consider these explanations as seeds that grew into something: the title "Stars Almost Drown" was a headline in a newspaper I saw years ago that became a poem (the "stars" were Hollywood stars in the news story, but I mean "stars in the sky" as well as the original meaning). "[The] Anatomy of Melancholy" is the title of a book by Robert Burton. "Poets and Paupers" is a twist on The Prince and the Pauper. "Never Comes Silence" is taken from the cadence of a similarly titled book...which I've forgotten. Against Nature's Leer is a homonym for "Lear," as in "King Lear"; I wanted to combine the idea of "leering" with some of the ideas in King Lear and invoke the sound of the word "lyric," in a false derivation. (Actually, every lyric on Leer is from King Lear, cut up and re-arranged to fit what I wanted to express, evoke, and allude to.) All this doesn't explain what the songs are "about." These connections are just how one aspect of the title or lyrics began.

I think I should stop now, because analyzing the words, processes, and meanings like this does a violence to the lyrics and titles. What I mean is that it's like dissecting a living body: if you cut it up, you'll learn some things, but you'll lose the opportunity to learn what a living being is, what it means to be alive. Besides, I don't want to give the impression that this is all there is to it, to how I write words and music. There's much more going on than this; it's a whole life that can't be summed up in a series of easy answers, although I guess that can help someone to understand it. I'm happy to let readers of the lyrics find what they can in them, make new meanings and connections. Besides, if you pull out one thread, sometimes the cloth unravels. I'd rather keep it whole!