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February 3, 2010

An ennead of terrifying visions – classic EP’s of Death Metal

This series of reviews shows the infectious potential of condensing the multidimensional texture of darkness and mythology into a carefully trimmed brief explosion with no room for filler or long, meaningless passages of droning, experimentation or interludes. Those who mastered the art of the metal EP or mini-LP are rare, but deserve all the more credit for their achievements. The fact that you can listen to everything we have here easily within the space of one evening does not mean that the unlocked experiences won’t stay with you forever.

Slayer – Haunting The Chapel

Showing a strong advancement in technique and an evolution towards a darker style that would be the staple of records to come by the band, Slayer throw off the camp shackles of their excellent first album, and give a more progressive approach to songcraft yet give more emphasis on repetition within individual riffs. The violent droning guitar timbre of Discharge makes itself ever more present whilst the musical language of Judas Priest and Angel Witch works itself within those patterns. The dissonant twin soloing of King and Hanneman is more suitable to this new direction also, whilst Lombardo’s aggressive battery finds more cohesion in using less variation and being more of an ambient backdrop than before, with Araya’s unmistakable rasp encoding itself sadistically within the depths. A bleak affair that summed up the apocalyptic meanderings of the speed metal movement and the embryonic beginnings of the death metal that was yet to manifest. -Pearson

Napalm Death – Mentally Murdered

This work is like a convergence of Napalm Death and Carcass, having left ‘From Enslavement to Obliteration’ and ‘Reek or Putrefaction’ behind in order to expand on their styles, towards ‘Harmony Corruption’ and ‘Symphonies of Sickness’ respectively. By Napalm’s standards, at this point in their discography, these songs are quite lengthy and structured with an attention to detail that recaptures the subtle shifts in mechanical motion of the earliest side to ‘Scum’. This technique is re-invigorated by the cleaner production, relegating the extremity of fuzzy bass for the sake of a twin-guitar assault that creates an hypnotic and delusional sensation, and shows the input of Jesse Pintado who would go on to record another highly influential work of Grindcore – Terrorizer’s ‘World Downfall’. Composition is practically freed at very the earliest moments of songs onwards, unlike previous Napalm Death albums where these parts were used to establish which riff will become immersed in a barely discernable anarchic explosion for the rest of the 30 seconds of music. Instead, it’s given a more Death Metal treatment, e.g. in ‘The Missing Link’, the opening riff seems to degrade over time into smaller grinding patterns until the fragments are juggled liked sacks of meat by morbid Death Metal riffs. This is where some of the tremelo melodies that would tear through the rotten wall of sound of Carcass finds its place, accompanied by the mocking lead guitars of Bill Steer. The human tornado, Mick Harris is even more precise than his previous effort, but doesn’t lose any of his epithet’s justification. Lee Dorrian’s vocals become more guttural and undecypherable, conceding to the futility of mainstream political discussion. The seeds of an approach closer in line with the burgeoning interest in Death Metal were sown here, simultaneously taking Grindcore one step further away from reaching the dead-end of short and simplistic outbursts of truncated riffs and hollow statements. -ObscuraHessian

Rotting Christ – Passage to Arcturo

Warm, playful and overflowing with the abundance of inspiration in the rediscovery of ancient shamanic techniques of mystical metal creation, the Greek pioneers of Rotting Christ forsook the aggravated modern noise of grindcore in time to ride the wave of blackness that usurped the European metal underground. Remnants and glimpses of 80’s fast modern metal (Slayer) give way to an astral, luminous intensity of synthesizers and slowly picked melodies that suspend the themes for a moment to enable the mind to stop wandering and relish the unholy moment of concentration, in a yogic gesture of blackness. Few have ever used the crushing sonic world of black and death metal to so fully immerse in ethereal ritual, and such rare examples as “Drawing Down the Moon” preserve plenty of subtle reminders to this widely heard classic of European black metal. As their chaotic exhortations in countless zines of the period conclude, Rotting Christ’s hybrid of gothic and black metal aimed for an architecture of the infinite, regal sunsets of lost kingdoms whose landscapes are not for the eyes of mortals, except in dreams and in death. As “Forest of N’Gai” aptly proves, black metal was at its height when not contorted to fit the schemes of a political ideology or an orthodox Satanist movement, but like the great works of literature a realm of fantasy of its own whose symbols are rooted in our deepest unconscious fears and desires. This sub-space can then be used by the analytical mind to figure the patterns of generation for a multitude of creative, even lunatic, concepts. -Devamitra

At the Gates – Gardens of Grief

The original Gothenburg gloomy melody cult made one of their strongest statements on this early EP, pressed from demo to vinyl on the first year of the band’s existence. Fresh from life disrespecting bands such as Infestation and Grotesque, these Swedes nail the most desperate guitar harmonies since Candlemass, but infect them with the viral sensibility of a flux of death current. As if plugging the Sunlight Studios into your brains in direct interface, Svensson’s tremolos rip and rend mercilessly apart the soul of the beast that dared expose its true feelings of living in a world of hypocrisy and uncertainty. The band has preserved the most fragile moment of the Swedish death metal underground, the precarious balance between the catatonic psychosis of headbanging under alcoholic influence and the deep, burning, thoughtful soul of an encrypted Romantic in a world of pain and disguised memories. It all takes such tangible form in Tomas Lindberg’s cracking, maddened scream: “I am at the gates – Lord of Chaos – Let me sleep”. The fear and anger of At the Gates’ most revered albums will always remain something that divides audiences according to their response to such emotional cues, but “Gardens of Grief” is the un-terrorized, exuberant sound of youth that realizes the presence of death and dives into it headlong, appropriate to the Per Ohlin dedication in the liner notes. -Devamitra

Wings – Thorns On Thy Oaken Throne

An all too brief EP from Finnish gloomophiliacs Wings, as ephemeral as the tortured existence that is enshrouded in these twisted sounds of darkness-raped melody. Almost like the missing tracks from Cartilage’s cult classic ‘The Fragile Concept of Affection’, this continuation goes further to explore the sombre moods of songs like ‘Why Do I Watch The Dawn?’, in their Replicant-like reflections upon the transience of a human existence placed between the crushing, vice-grip of nothingness. Wings don’t peturb the balance of pace of slower, more expansive lakes of hypnotic melody that made up Cartilage’s contribution to their split with Altar, but there is greater focus on creating a doomier atmosphere, leaving no space for the grinding riffs of the past incarnation – a technique that parrelleled the Swedish Unleashed on their first album. Instead, an older treatment is given to the bouncier riffs, which could be heard as Punkier passages, but as this EP comes together as a whole to reveal, these bridge the narrative that seems to span across both songs with a mid-pace tempo in which the drawn out melodies pass through towards an expressive, quite neoclassical riff of totality – encompassing all the hopes that are weighed down by all the sorrows in the journey towards death. This poem in two parts is a valuable recording of Death Metal history, as a valid direction for these Finnish musicians to have taken following the demise of Cartilage, with all their weird melodic knowledge as baggage. -ObscuraHessian

Sacramentum – Finis Malorum

A true gem, Sacramentum’s first EP showcases a style that is melodic and emotive in a manner not unlike countrymen Dissection and Unanimated. Epic, catchy and well crafted compositions are multi-layered not unlike Emperor minus keyboards, the rush of guitar notes being vibrant and lively, with little emphasis towards a rhythmic expectation, as one would expect with most heavy metal and hard rock music. Simultaneously moody yet without being whiny, this early release by Sacramentum showcases a band who are able to master quality control and bring the best out of all the elements that define their music. Alongside At The Gates, artistically the finest Swedish metal act of the 1990’s. -Pearson

Zyklon-B – Blood Must Be Shed

Fast, raging black metal with the fury of early Deicide and the sharp harmonizing typical of Mayhem and Immortal’s ‘Pure Holocaust’ come head to head, in the guise of technically precise, abrupt songs. Shouty hardcore vocals, warm synth overlaps, a near constant blastbeat and anti-humanist lyrical concepts indicate a desire by known Norwegian musicians to advance the aggression of the black metal style and shift it’s idealogical focus away from romantic nostalgia. This brief E.P. lacks the spark of Norway’s foundational acts, but remains an influential statement of the subgenre. -Pearson

Vulpecula – Fons Immortalis

Who would have expected Chuck Keller to open the gates to very Orion itself after the folding of the aggressor squad par excellence Order from Chaos? As if a continuation of the promise of the astrological and alchemistic symbolism of the former bands’ lyrics, Vulpecula slows it down and strums soothing, yet vigorous melodies while the vocals multiple into wraith-like dimensions of rhythmic rasps and Keller’s leads occasionally burst into the aggressive, spasmous flight of an eagle amidst a thunderstorm. “Phoenix of the Creation” delves into exercises in authentic space synth, while “The First Point of Aries” harkens to the mid-paced woodland meditations that the Norwegians used to record at Grieghallen. Occasionally slightly hindered by the band’s eagerness to cram all the influences from Schulze to black metal into one short EP, the mere richness of it invites the ears to take their pleasure at will from the Babylonian garden of ponderous and prestigious movements that are achingly attractive and acceptable in their innocent refusal to complicate things with dissonance. Credit also goes for the lead guitar efforts of Keller on their traditional melodious injection which easily avoids the neutrality of more pop oriented bands trying to do the same. Almost like envisioning a “new age” approach to the genre, Vulpecula is an alien saucer amidst the orbit bound technologies of “progressive” death metal. -Devamitra

Divine Eve – Vengeful and Obstinate

The first new release that’s being reviewed for 2010 and it’s already giving distinct impressions of the kind of quality that made 1993’s ‘As the Angels Weep’ a genuinely classic EP. Divine Eve keeps the form of this new material far simpler, stripping away the Death Metal-infected sludginess for a more rudimentary homage to early brutal music like Celtic Frost. ‘Vengeful and Obstinate’ makes its own unique statement by honing in on the nihilistic and warlike spirit of the Swiss legend’s ‘To Mega Therion’ magnum opus, even invoking the same battle-horns on ‘Ravages of Heathen Men’ that bring focus to the beauty of conflict and strife in a meaningless universe. The varied tempo of grinding riffs set to a dirty bass guitar adds to the atmosphere of struggle as an outlet for this primitive and instinctual response to the world. ‘Whispers of Fire’ being the exception on this EP for the constantly up-tempo pace, it’s a pleasure to hear such slow and sludgy music churning visions of the darker universe beyond our lives of comfort and languish. The final and most devastating touch of ‘Vengeful and Obstinate’ is how Divine Eve makes extensive use of the piercing tone that Xan’s grating guitar setup produces, highlighting the spiral passage of powerchords by revealing their hidden, melodic architecture that ingenuiously manages to explain and enhance this rugged approach of legendary lineage. It’s about time the band produced a full-length and they’ve proved that they possess more than enough knowledge of unholy riffcraft to do so. -ObscuraHessian

Death Metal Album of the Week: Wicked Innocence – Omnipotence

Following the course of American Death Metal through the early to mid-nineties shows the beginnings of a noteable schism in how bands approached Death Metal composition. As a new wave of fans became immersed in this extreme music, exposed via. mainstream outlets such as MTV and Music for Nations, the underground ethos of pure artistry became sacrificed to some degree, to reflect this broader audience. On one hand, there were bands like Cannibal Corpse, Deicide and Obituary dumbing down the music and setting a tradition of thoughtless extremity for musicians to pursue until this surrogate activity became formalised under titles like ‘Brutal Death Metal’ (also latching onto the furthest extremes of rhythmic Death Metal to that point – Suffocation, and the simplicity of Grindcore technique). On the other hand, an obviously smaller number of bands went in an opposite direction, inspired by the Jazz-infused music of Atheist and Death’s ‘Human‘, to create varieties of technical and progressive Death Metal. Whichever the case and whatever the quality of any individual example of music that sits within this timeframe, it’s obvious that there was somewhat of a spiritual decline in American Death Metal at this point.

To find this week’s prized album will then require us to venture away from the centres of Florida and the northern tri-states of America, and instead to Mid-Western Utah’s capital of Salt Lake City, famous for its infestation of polygamous Mormons. Here we find a band who were pretty much loners in that continent’s extreme music scene, but seemingly not placed there without a purpose. Their equidistant view of both scenes lead Wicked Innocence to create an album that, though sounding firmly in the camp of mid-nineties Brutal Death Metal, has a very progressive edge with lyrics that are closer to the cosmic existentialism of Cynic or Atheist. ‘Omnipotence’ gets rolling with a barrage typical of the aforementioned north-eastern, essentially, purely rhythmic style of Death Metal, but this music has very little in common with the tedious likes of Dying Fetus and Dehumanized, and gradually more and more progressive tendencies and flourishes of Floridan musicality creep into the album to leave an impression of something quite unique and stimulating.

Even on the level of rhythm, a direction is established within micro-rhythmic units of those riffs and sent spiralling into disarray with a Grindcore fervour for destruction. These kaleidoscopic patterns are hyper-extended into heavier chunks of guitarwork which get disintegrated further in another grinding sequence of powerchords that resembles a frustrated echo bouncing within the walls of some symbolic cube, floating meaninglessly in deep space. The melodies that tear out of this method resemble a less occult Incantation or Infester but are imbued with all of their insanities. Shades of Revenant appear in the shredding of more melodic riffs, whereby the rhythmical aspect is suspended above the beat, causing a profound sensation of impending death. As the album progresses, the melodic/rhythmic interplay becomes more integral to the sense of deconstructionism that the music conveys, revealing ever broader contexts of consciousness, like a reversed Hegelian dialectic. Bass guitar is extremely competent in underscoring this growing expanse of nothingness, similar in role to Cynic on their legendary demo, without being very discernably Jazzy. The drumming is reasonably technical as should be expected from any band that can trace their origins back to Suffocation, which the vocalist acknowledges with some amusing performances that are spewed out from an intestinal level of depth. Clearly, ‘Omnipotence’ was a timely release, before this intricate mesh of popular styles would be undermined by another generation of bands who randomly throw ideas together for no purpose at all.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: American Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal, Florida Death Metal, Fusion, New York Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 03:17 — Comments (1)

January 27, 2010

Death Metal Album of the Week: Necros Christos – Triune Impurity Rites

After the backfire of metalcore and ironic jokes wrapped in death metal clothing, failed reunions and commercially motivated Bloodbath-style tributes a new breed of death metal bands obsessed with funereal, paranormal and asphyxiating atmosphere above all else penetrated the ground from beneath. While originally celebrated exclusively by collectors and geeks who possessed tremendous tape and vinyl collections, gradually metal fans from differing backgrounds gathered to see the tours and savor the albums of new more authentic seeming bands like Dead Congregation from Greece, Deathevokation from California and Deutschland’s Necros Christos. While these bands were all firmly rooted in the abominable legends told by Incantation, Mystifier and other anti-musicians, they took care to use the organized polish and visual design of 21st century black metal to appease also the generation raised on dramatic, ideologically motivated “art”.

As for the music, it’s far from impersonal or humble. Mors Dalos Ra and his team of qabbalists indulge in goofy rituals, hyper-exaggerated pauses and gestures, horror organs, chanted spells and minimal doom riffs almost like going for a parody of satanic metal through the ages. However, the songs are joyous, exhilarating, morbid and alive with unholy fire. The guitarists use their knowledge of classical guitar and oriental scales to wrap the death metal themes in a progressive procession of movements that seem to mimic an inverted Passion play, the journey of a goatborn Christ to relinquish his throne to undead gods, while sodomized angels weep over the mythical ziggurats appearing somewhere in the moonlit wasteland near Bethlehem. Sounds hilarious? Well, that’s what it is – like Impiety or Impaled Nazarene, Necros Christos throws all the mockery and analogy squarely in the face of the philosopher, eschewing subtlety and relishing madness. The music is surprisingly controlled, as there is no chaotic blasting nor disembodied screams floating all over the place. Instead, we get an organized meditation of lurking and crawling Sabbathic (in various senses) melodies, from extravagantly beautiful (“Gate II – Offenbarungen der Mayrim”) to grating and dissonant (“Skulldoom of Sumer”) while many leads toy with Baroque ideas and desolate urges fitting for a Paradise Lost demo. Especially recommended for a listener who doesn’t consider “cheesy” a curse word.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Baroque, Black Metal, Death Metal, Mythology, Occultism, Religion, Sumerian Music — Devamitra @ 15:02 — Comments (1)

January 26, 2010

Morgue Supplier – Constant Negative

If you visualize the modern death metal genre as a knightly tournament with splendid banners adorning the tents of the contestants on an ancient Briton field, you can’t escape the prominence of the progressive camp espoused by Necrophagist and the obscure evil camp belonging to hairy South Americans and occult woodland Finns. Then there are the loved and the hated “brutals”. The unfortunate Morgue Supplier goes all the way to the leaden territory of mechanized grindcore, brutal blastbeat and convulsive gore that is best epitomized by Cryptopsy’s and Cannibal Corpse’s groundbreaking albums “Blasphemy Made Flesh” and “The Bleeding” (or your favorite other pick from that mostly dubious discography). The speed is astounding, the songs careen through slashes of riffs like the beak of a vulture on the prowl, injecting pinch harmonics into mono chord chug while vocals are the dual growl-and-shriek statement we have heard enough times in this beaten substyle. A couple of minor gems arise though. The cover version of Metallica’s “Fight Fire By Fire” is an entertaining lecture on the genealogy of early speed metal and how it almost by itself mutates to something close to Possessed or Sepultura if played with intensity, distortion and malevolent speeds. On the side, the title track “Constant Negative” has a smudged enough texture to operate as a chasm of interlocking layers similar to Gorguts’ fusionesque work on the mighty “Obscura”. Perhaps a hint where brutal death metal might develop if given enough care and attention? I personally could do without the mosh parts, but those who were disappointed by the wimping out of Cryptopsy should perhaps check this release out.

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Brutal Death Metal, Death Metal, Goregrind, Grindcore — Devamitra @ 13:04 — Comments (0)

January 24, 2010

Windham Hell – South Facing Epitaph

Darkthrone managed to conjure something far more stimulating to the imagination when they were inspired by horror and science-fiction movie soundtracks to create vast journeys of cosmic Death Metal. Windham Hell’s first album also follows from the deeper recesses of popular culture and cinema, fucking with the senses and expectations of the Metal listener through this Lynchian maze of psychological horror and ominous mortality. The first thing that’s evident about the musicians at work here, particularly the late Eric Freisen on guitars, is the uncustomary level of formal training demonstrated in these pieces, which bear close stylistic resemblance to the famous concertos of Antonio Vivaldi. The riffs that make up the bulk of actual Metal songs on this erratic album are nothing spectacular or unconventional but formed with the lead guitar in mind, acting much like the movie samples and vomitory vocals do to provide a kind of ambient feeling of suspended horror and panic that the leads then magnify through their virtuoso performances, building on the looming fear with sporadic outbursts of mental excitation. The rest of the album is a feast for those who would enjoy the subversion of popular culture through a post-modernist cutting and pasting of morbidly curious voices bridged with Classical flourishes, although may lose the attention of others. There is enough tastefully executed technique on show to keep this as engaging as possible, and a far superior album to the following ‘Window of Souls’.

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Baroque, Classical, David Lynch, Death Metal, Horror — ObscuraHessian @ 23:25 — Comments (1)

January 21, 2010

Death Metal Album of the Week: Septic Flesh – Mystic Places of Dawn

Septic Flesh’s first album fits very neatly into the old Hellenic scene as a collosus of melodic majesty, but where this one differs from the other noteworthy Grecian offerings is precisely what makes it suitable listening for our ritual of death-worship this week. Not unlike the infamous Nordic Black Metallers in the earliest stages of their musical careers, a lot of the Greek Black Metal bands began playing more rotten music before unleashing their fusion of epic Heavy and Black Metal, and Septic Flesh would be no exception two albums later with their own output of blackness, ‘The Ophidian Wheel‘. ‘Mystic Places of Dawn’ however, retains a little more of this band’s origins in Death Metal and Grindcore even though what ensues on this record is some of the most melodically articulate and enchanting music produced by this ancient country in modern history. The Greek underground was definitely a pandaemonic entity, and where some would exhalt Lucifer or some unknown underworld monarch, the band in question carved out their own mysterious and forgotten mythology of a far less ‘blackened’ conception, leading to the diverse approach of this release.

The opening track launches from deep below the Aegean sea floor and is quick to demonstrate Septic Flesh’s background in Death Metal with intense, rhythmically conscious blast-beats and kick-drumming that approaches the speed of Proscriptor on Absu’s famed percussive exhibition known as ‘Tara‘. Amidst this brutality are epic melodies that, although following familiar scalic patterns, are beautifully woven together between windtunnel shredding and grind-encrypted riffs. The slower tempos that dominate the rest of this work explore ethereal sensations of reflection upon lost spiritual wisdom, with keyboards taking cues from Rotting Christ. Older, sometimes tribal, sometimes Classical sounds produced by additional instrumentation goes further to create an atmospheric Metal approximation of the mystical, neoclassical and world music of Dead Can Dance on albums such as ‘Within the Realm of the Dying Sun‘ or ‘Aion‘. Caught in a dream of the past that might enliven the yearning of our waking lives for civilisation to once again resonate ancient and cosmic knowledge, Septic Flesh took Greek underground Metal to new heights, managing to seamlessly encapsulate all the major styles of Metal in the process.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Black Metal, Death Metal, Greek Black Metal, Greek Death Metal, Mysticism, World — ObscuraHessian @ 02:23 — Comments (1)

January 17, 2010

Nocturnal Transcendence – Interview with Midnight Odyssey

As much of the northern hemisphere is being overwhelmed by the onslaught of winter, the flames of Hell are rising to consume the south at summer’s peak. Still, the hardened souls of Black Metal warriors remain unfrozen, and Australia’s Dis Pater from Midnight Odyssey is no exception. A recent arrival on the scene producing beautiful and mature music demanded one of our interrogations, which revealed some of this artist’s thoughts on ambience, patience and experience.

ObscuraHessian: We thought ‘Firmament‘ was among the best albums of 2009, and I was pleased to hear that I, Voidhanger is doing the good deed of re-releasing your old material within the next couple of months! Looking back at your first Midnight Odyssey work, with its exhibition of diverse influences, how would you describe your mindset as an artist back then, compared to putting tracks together for the more streamlined ‘Firmament’?

Dis Pater: Hello, thank you for your compliments. I, Voidhanger is in fact re-releasing “Firmament” which shall be out early March hopefully. The Forest Mourners was for me somewhat of a transcendence between the music I used to write and record privately and the Firmament release. I had a lot of influences which I wanted to incorporate into the project, and I guess I wanted to keep the door open as much as possible to prevent being labelled any one genre of music.

ObscuraHessian: In addition to hearing the obvious traces of bands like Burzum and Summoning in the demo, the ambiental feeling seems to quote some of my favourite ambient output, from Jääportit to ‘Dark Age of Reason’-era Arcana. What’s your relationship with ambient music and what’s your recipe for ‘Ambient Black Metal’?

Dis Pater: I have long been a fan of Cold Meat Industry bands, particularly early Arcana, Raison D’Etre, Ildfrost, Mortiis, Deutsch Nepal, In Slaughter Natives, etc, etc. Ambient music was the first music I ever tried to record, and it’s something I have worked on as much as black metal, so combining the two seems natural for me. A recipe? Well A lot of modern bands do a fantastic job of mixing ambience and black metal – Paysage D’hiver, Coldworld, Darkspace, Marblebog, Vinterriket, etc, I think it’s just being able to use keyboards with metal in a not so pompous way.

ObscuraHessian: I like to imagine that an entire Black Metal album could be recorded one day without percussion. Midnight Odyssey’s proclivity for ambience demonstrates as well as a ‘Filosofem’, ‘Winterkald‘ or ‘Antichrist‘ how this could actually work. Do you think that there’s enough scope in ‘Black Metal composition’ to eschew drums completely? Maybe an artist should just go and make electronic music like so many warriors have done?!

Dis Pater: It’s funny you say electronic music. I too have delved into the electronic side of things in the past, and find a unique way of writing music there that seems to work well with the way I write for Midnight Odyssey. Bands like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, all the way up to Trance and Industrial Electronica all have some unique element for repetition and layer building. I try to do the same with Midinght Odyssey, but with guitars and bass. I think it is possible to record an entire album without drums, it’s something I have thought about, and think I could achieve in the future, without going too far down the line of electronic music.

ObscuraHessian: On ‘The Forest Mourners’, there is a subtle but still more continual folkiness to the music. Some of it reminds me of the folk/ambient images that A. Tolonen produces with Nest, but other times are a little more Celtic? as is the case with the opening track – which makes me think of a more contemplative Himinbjorg. Did you use such folk stylings as a conscious expression of ancestry, or is this a direct manifestation of musical influences? Being an Australian, is such a tribal connection even possible, in the manner of the Norwegians from Helvete, for example?

Dis Pater: The folk element is something deliberately incorporated into the music. I have good friends who are in a celtic folk band here in Brisbane, so their influence on my music is sometimes present. Also I enjoy folk metal, and some heavy metal such as Gary Moore’s Wild Frontier album, where there seems to be a lot of celtic folk/rock influences. So yes in Brisbane it is possible to still maintain some connectivity with a European heritage, probably more-so than say America because Australia is a much younger country, most of us have parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who weren’t born here. Also my music is about a time long ago in the past, and thus folk music has its meaning there.

ObscuraHessian: There is as much mention of ’spirits’ in the titles of songs from ‘The Forest Mourners’ as there is of nature, but the ideas of the subsequent album seem to suggest that this reflects more than just an animism of some sort. You talk about ‘Departing Flesh and Bone’ and of course, the whole work is underlied by this connection between the active and earthly, and cosmic and eternal. This is an idea which is really interesting to me because it seems to get lost in modern discussions of both natural science and populist, Judeo-Christian religion. Could you explain how you came to terms with this understanding?

Dis Pater: To me, this entire area has been corrupted by Judeo-Christianity and most modern monotheistic or dualistic religions, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, etc. The album Firmament is based on the moment of death, the moment a soul leaves the human body and what supposedly comes after. This is based on a somewhat personal experience which I have attempted to migrate to a more populous and general theme, set back in a time which I believe has been erased from human record, a time when humans were a little more in touch with their spiritual and carnal natures, when everything wasn’t so easily divided into what’s good and what’s evil. I like the moral ambiguity of everything, that to me is what existence is about, it’s not about the ultimate battle of good and evil that religion tells us to believe in.

ObscuraHessian: Even with your influences on your sleeves, so to speak, the music of Midnight Odyssey is very imaginative and this rapid-fire consistency at this point of your career makes it feel very ‘lived out’! How would you describe the way in which the actual sounds that you produce are a representation of the aforementioned ideas or feelings? I mean, with most popular music, it seems to be fabricated in such a way to prioritise the broadest demographics, but obviously, good Black Metal wouldn’t be composed with such vagueness in mind!

Dis Pater: Yes my music is rather spontaneous actually. I won’t write anything for months, then do an album in three days, then sit back a few weeks and let it mature, perfecting it. When the time comes to write music, I am completely obsessed, engulfed in this strange atmosphere, it’s kind of like walking out before a summer storm, you can almost feel the lightning seeking you out ready to strike, it’s almost panic. It’s usually after hearing a certain song somewhere, an idea will come into my head, and I won’t be able to sleep, I usually don’t eat or drink anything for a day or so. I listen to a lot of music, and I know what I like and I only release music that after a while I can still listen to and not feel embarrassed or ashamed about, to me it has to envoke those same impulses and manic trances that I got whilst recording the music. I know the exact tones, the exact reverb levels, the exact production levels I like and desire, so my music is always a mixture of new creative forces and learned processes, which has taken me nearly 10 years to get to.

ObscuraHessian: The sound of the full-length is naturally better as there’s more space between instruments but you still managed to reflect an enclosed feeling which sounds like the music is passing through a million leaves and branches before it hits the listener. Did the demo receive any remastering before sent to be pressed for its forthcoming distribution?

Dis Pater: The demo, actually both demos which will be re-released, (The Forest Mourners on Kunsthauch Records in Russia, possibly as a split) But neither are going to re-mastered, they are being kept the same, the only difference is with the new version of Firmament, the songs will be made to cut out less at the end (i.e. the music fades a bit before ending abruptly) and the last track From Beyond The 8th Sphere is being renamed simply Beyond the 8th Sphere (We noticed I used the word From a bit too much haha).

ObscuraHessian: Are you still working on music for an album to follow ‘Firmament’?

Dis Pater: Yes there are a couple of things. One is a split with Wedard, which will be two songs from the Firmament sessions, actually one was written in between Forest Mourners and Firmament and has a bit more of an epic folk, and the other was written after and is not really a metal song). The next full length is recorded (except the vocals) and is a continuation of Firmament. Musically I think it is similar, but maybe a little bit more epic and ethereal in feel.

ObscuraHessian: Could you tell us a little about your activities outside of Midnight Odyssey, including any other musical projects?

Dis Pater: Other than Midnight Odyssey, I have a project called Fires Light The Sky. I had recorded two songs but have changed the style a bit of the band and am set to release 4 songs (which are actually old old Midnight Odyssey songs reworked and re-recorded, I think three of them I wrote in 1999, and one in 2001, so it’s a more aggressive and standard black metal but nonetheless I feel I have to release them just to get them out of mind, it’s like holding on to a secret that you want to tell everyone and can’t do anything else until you tell someone. Also I have plans for a funeral doom project at some stage this year.

ObscuraHessian: What was the last awesome book that you read?

Dis Pater: The last good book, well strangely I don’t read much, I think the last good thing I read was a book on Early Greek Philosophy, it was interesting to see just how fragmented records are and the work that goes into fitting the pieces of history together. It was interesting too to see these people from thousands of years ago try to describe something, and doing it relatively correctly, but just not having the correct terminology and understanding to fully comprehend it.

ObscuraHessian: What was the last piece of music you heard that resonated most with your own thoughts and feelings?

Dis Pater: The last music would definitely be the Polish band Evilfeast, I got some cds on the way and I can’t wait to hear the whole albums, a couple of songs I’ve heard of them blew me away – epic, atmospheric and very depressing dark music.

Hails to Dis Pater for answering my questions and all the best for the future of Midnight Odyssey!

Filed under: Death Metal Interviews — Tags: Ambient, Australian Black Metal, Black Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 05:16 — Comments (2)

January 11, 2010

Death Metal Album of the Week: Monstrosity – Imperial Doom

Stylistically bonding the progressive riffcraft of Morbid Angel and the percussive intensity of Suffocation, Monstrosity craft a monument that hybridizes the ‘foundational’ death metal that came out of their native Florida and the ‘brutal’ take on the substyle that was making itself known in New York. Whirling power chord and tremolo led riffs not unlike ‘Altars Of Madness’ come face to face with the progressive, grindcore informed drumming that was a centerpiece of ‘Effigy Of The Forgotten’, whilst George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher’s intense, hoarse vocal delivery and Mark Van Erp’s bass playing have all the passion and savagery of a more mid-paced ‘Legion’. An essential piece of work, being a summation and hybrid of the foundational styles of American death metal. Any listener worth their salt should bow in admiration to this opus.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Brutal Death Metal, Death Metal, Florida Death Metal — Pearson @ 09:27 — Comments (3)

January 7, 2010

Totten Korps – Tharnheim: Athi-Land-Nhi; Ciclopean Crypts of Citadels

South America holds a very unholy place in the minds of Death Metal legions around the world, with the Brazilian scene of particular note for unearthing a bestial and blasphemous mode of Death Metal worship that drew inspiration from the mightiest warriors of Satan known to them: Bathory and Slayer, and would infuse these ideas with a level of wreckless primitivism and rawness unheard before. Chilean veterans Totten Korps’ music is an advancement of this style, assuming the forms of infamous Speed/Death barbarians like fellow Chileans, Pentagram and Brazilians, Holocausto and Vulcano within a cleaner soundspace that allows for more exploration of sinister melody in a winding, maze-like structure that is symbolic of the album’s perpetual struggle for primordial knowledge and occult powers. This is what separates Totten Korps from the trendier bands like Krisiun who have little taste for well thought-out narratives, preferring a collection of soundbites that cleave to a roughly Death Metal template. The band also knows how to keep the South American atavisms of bouncy and rhythmic passages that are punctuated by a vague melodic pattern in line with the greater whole of composition, often reflecting a central, recurring theme. There’s almost a Kataklysm-ic sense of grandeur in this method, although it sacrifices the flair of such precision for the fragmented and impulsive butchery of a good, old school Death Metal album from the land of condors and corpses.

Havohej, maggot
They are going to drag
Yourself in the dust
Ethereal orb
Let your thought go

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Chilean Death Metal, Death Metal, Nazism, Occult — ObscuraHessian @ 02:41 — Comments (2)

Achtung! Totten Korps Kommen

In the abyssic southern lands of the Americas, an ancient force is re-awakening, as one of Chile’s best Death Metal bands prepares their next attack on this complacent world. After an absence of 9 years from the scene, within which saw the re-release of their last album, ‘Tharnheim: Athi-Land-Nhi; Ciclopean Crypts of Citadels‘ in a double-CD package along with another abomination of occultic Death Metal, Imprecation’s ‘Theurgia Goetia Summa’, Totten Korps evoked the images of their forthcoming creation with these words to Deathmetal.Org:

Francisco Torres: I tell you that it’s gonna be really wicked, 9 songs and 2 old school bonus tracks… it is worth waiting for, we are very motivated and convinced that it will be a very good production. Right now, it’s 100% produced by Totten Korps, although we don’t discard any offer that may raise our interest. It’ll become a reality in April, at the latest.

This album is not entirely focused in mysticism, we are including more tangible and real subjects regarding this damn world, we paint themes like madness, desires for death and blood within yourself, the manipulation of religions and much more, be patient and you’ll know more when the album gets into the streets.

Obviously the way we play and the sound have evolved in a very good way, take account of the 9 years that had passed by. Back in those years, the reachability and technology weren’t the same of today, so, now it’s much easier to achieve something monstrous.

Recalls the change in sound that occured in Sarcofago’s music two decades ago, so it will be very interesting to hear what level of brutality can be summoned by this premier South American Death Metal band. For those unfamiliar with the capabilities of the Chilean commanding veterans Totten Korps, a review of their only full-length album is due to burst from the festering cadaver of this post and onto your screens.

Thanks to Octuple of Forest Poetry for the translation of Totten Korps’ update.

Filed under: Death Metal Interviews, Death Metal News — Tags: Black Metal, Chilean Death Metal, Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 02:39 — Comments (0)

January 4, 2010

Death Metal Album of the Week: Infernäl Mäjesty – None Shall Defy

None Shall Defy This week the hammer of Canadian malevolence returns to pound us mortals to shreds of cellular fabric, but we are far from the realm of cybernetic protoplasmas and progressive mayhem of Voivod, Obliveon and Gorguts. You should know that before Canada’s scene was fully immersed in grinding death metal (besides the mighty Slaughter), spiked thrashers wreaked havoc on the stages of North America spreading waves of violence that influenced war metal, death metal and black metal for decades. Bands like Darkthrone have been vocal about their influences from Razor and Sacrifice, while further insane hardcore oriented speed demons remain hallowed in the cultic shrines of vinyl collectors. Death thrashers Infernäl Mäjesty is not the heaviest nor the most progressive formation of its era, but in sheer memorability, grimness and riff glory surpasses much of the highly praised German and US technical thrash of its day.

In overall melodic construction, the Mäjesty are pretty close to a virtual unfinished Slayer recording that would have existed between “Hell Awaits” and “Reign in Blood”; Infernal Majesty NWOBHM-tinged evil dual guitars wail horror musics fogging the atmosphere when the pace slows down in “Night of the Living Dead” or “None Shall Defy”, the aggressive shout breaks occasionally into grunts of the demon and when the bands’ mania repels them from the older convention of thrash, they encode the music into low simple rhythmic Morse riff patterns that aggravate and counterpoint all the “happy” or “rock” sides of the music. Much mediocre death thrash was killed by their inability to meld high energy speed metal to nuances and fragrances of rotting corpses and stomped flowers but Infernäl Mäjesty does it with the stateliness of an apocalyptic wasteland – like a futuristic party band of a time when killing is the only law and cannibalistic Cro-Magnons feast on the living and the dead alike. Just check the atmospheric basslines and convulsive fistpounding tempi of “Anthology of Death” to see why it’s occasionally so delightful to stray from pure death worship to these punk rocking thresholds of the early days.

A respectable re-release from Displeased Records has been around for a while so if you see your favorite distributors carrying it, I recommend you pick it up and bang your heads ’til utter oblivion!

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Canadian Death Metal, Death Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash, War Metal — Devamitra @ 23:36 — Comments (0)

January 1, 2010

Onwards to a decade of dominance

Entombed '92 Death Metal is neither an outdated form of immature musical expression nor one commercially produced alternative product for consumers who would pretend to be real individuals. It is a way of seeing the world, always has been and always shall be. Regardless religious, scientific or political orientation I assume we can agree that death, as concept, is universal and encompassing, since no king nor magician nor soldier nor businessman is exempt from its eventual icy touch.

It is the first New Year since we reformatted this site to bring you vital, non-obvious and hopefully inspiring information, news and discussion about Death Metal and related topics. Appropriately, it is also the turn of the decade and we are at the threshold of new ideas, innovations and intents. To celebrate the endless possibilities given to us by the Universe for our brief lives upon the Earth and to thank all the people who have worked with us, gotten in touch or read us, last but not least the brave musicians who throughout the years have brought us all these dimensional deconstructions, we have a massive update for you to peruse and guide you in making the right New Year’s promises such as: to listen to more Death Metal.

Everyone knows bands like Amorphis, Demilich and Sentenced devastated worldwide audiences with their darkspawned conjurations in 1993 but very few know what’s good in the new millennium Finnish Death Metal. To correct this state of things we discussed with chosen bands such as Lie in Ruins, Slugathor, Hooded Menace, Deathspawned Destroyer, Sepulchral Aura, Ascended and Devilry about their mysterious ways. The article “Ascension of Sepulchral Echoes: A Finnish Death Metal Revival” is now online here at Deathmetal.Org.

Before there were metal websites and reference tools such as the Metal-Archives for one to easily access every tidbit of information, there were underground metal zines produced non-profit by maniacs who had basically the same purpose as we do: to tell you about good metal, new vistas and infernal heresies. A large exhibit “Morbid Scriptorium: A Museum of Metal Zines” of some of the best zines we have come across has been gathered here and on the side, a long exploration featuring craftsmen who brought to you the verbal abominations of Buttface zine, Chainsaw Abortions zine, Hammer of Damnation zine, Fallen Pages zine and Pure Fucking Hell zine is published here in the articles section: “Pages of Pure Fucking Damnation: Zines in the Death Metal Underground”. And if that’s not enough reading for you to get you through the dark days when the winter storms lock you inside your cabin, check out the eclectic “road book” by ex-Metal Maniacs writer Ryan Bartek, “The Big Shiny Prison”, spanning from black metal to raves, Stalaggh to Barack Obama here as a free PDF directly from the author.

We hope you enjoy the materials and the rest of the winter.

Morbid New Years’ hails to the devotees from the entire Deathmetal.Org staff!

Filed under: Death Metal News — Tags: Black Metal, Cosmos, Death Metal, Death Metal Culture, Death Metal Zines, Finnish Death Metal, Literature — Devamitra @ 20:51 — Comments (1)

December 31, 2009

Phlebotomized – Immense, Intense, Suspense

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The Dutch also had this weird band among their ranks, who guitarist Peter Verhoef joined following the dissolution of Ceremony, to record what would be Phlebotomized’s final and most psychedelic album, ‘Skycontact‘. A few years prior, they were still prone to radical experimentation with instrumentation and song-structure, but truer to their roots in Grindcore and Death Metal. Clearly raging with the impulse to try something new and unconventional, Phlebotomized came up with this bizarre work that renders At The Gates’ debut album masterpiece in the style of early My Dying Bride, with all the Classical allusions that such a fusion brings forth through its meandering compositions and violin accompaniment. Although the execution does get fairly uneasy in the wildly oscillating mood swings, there’s nothing token about Phlebotomized’s take on Doomdeath Metal in it’s more Gothic incarnation that followed from the success of emotional wrecks like those famous three signed to Peaceville!

There’s a greater sense of purpose in how the band manipulate feelings of melancholy around the complex narratives that relate the influence of dogmatism on susceptible minds, thirsting for something to quench the emptiness. Violin melodies lull the listener into a false and sarcastic sense of safety over guitars which carve out precipices before chaos, creating scenes of desperation, clinging to fairy-tale illusions that will never materialize, but comfort the inability to deal with the real world. Keyboards also assert themselves throughout the album, representing the mind-infiltrators of both Christianity and psychological therapists(!), with dominant themes that really influence the moments of beauty when they converge with guitars and violin to synchronise in sorrow and helplessness, such as in ‘Desecration of Alleged Christian History’. In contrast, a lot of this atmosphere is lost when extra-instrumentation is forced to accompany the more conventional Metal riffs, which is disappointingly in line with what makes later Doom bands like Lacrimas Profundere fail so badly. ‘Immense, Intense, Suspense’ pulls off its high musical aspirations with enough competence for such things to be overlooked. It’s not the kind of album that Death Metal connoisseurs will revisit too often, but has a trademarked, heavy Dutch resolve and a first-rate neoclassical acoustic song, ‘In Search of Tranquility’ that makes this at least a curious highlight from the past.

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Death Metal, Doom Metal, Doomdeath, Dutch Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 19:32 — Comments (0)

December 30, 2009

Death Metal Album of the Week: Ceremony – Tyranny From Above

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Of all the European camps that dominated the early nineties, the Dutch were responsible for some of the most direct and brutal music of the time. Ceremony were no exception, possibly excelling the likes of Asphyx, Pestilence and Sinister in terms of their ability to suffocate the senses. For wealth of sheer down-tuned heaviness, the only full-length output by this band is one of the few old-school Death Metal albums from Europe that comes close to achieving the engulfing darkness of the aesthetically engaging ‘Effigy of the Forgotten‘ by Suffocation – others include Fleshcrawl’s subterranean classic, ‘Descend into the Absurd‘ – which must be what most people imagine when they’re made to think of Death Metal! And not unlike the heavyweight of NYDM, the real appeal of ‘Tyranny From Above’ lies in the melodic direction of the music, although it works quite differently. Rather than acting as a connecting device between a linear series of rhythmic progressions, the sharp outbursts of melody here are wrestled out of the striding and wildly pulsating guitarwork with riffs that have the logical direction of Sinister and the unpredictable, firearm quality of the Swedish Seance. These riffs and their placement are very erratically arranged, like a Hydra flailing around in the endless darkness of it’s severed vision, but regenerate with the higher-register shredding reminscent of Atrocity’s ‘Todessehnsucht‘, inverting the discordant nature of the heavier, blasting moments as they peak in energy. This musical struggle against the forces that are imposed on our wills to weaken us and blind us from reality is among the finest examples of Brutal Death Metal, in a sub-genre that’s long since been over-run by mindless American herds.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Brutal Death Metal, Death Metal, Dutch Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 23:05 — Comments (3)

December 29, 2009

New Year’s Incantation

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Incantation will be raiding the eastern-most shores of Europe this January. Fellow Ibex Moon heathens Divine Eve will also be hitting the dates in England, Spain and then onwards to Italy, no doubt unleashing heavy doses of the old-school, cryptic language from the upcoming ‘Vengeful and Obstinate’ EP. The pan-European conglomerate of Hate, Nerve and Noctem will provide further support throughout the tour, with local bands intervening. Scapegoattou2r A diabolical start to the year for European residents who can’t resist the infernal sound of northern USDM.

13/01/2010 – The Central – Nottingham, UK
14/01/2010 – Rio’s – Leeds, UK
15/01/2010 – Bannermans – Edinburgh, UK
16/01/2010 – The Elektrowerkz – London, UK
17/01/2010 – Den Eglantier – Antwerp, Belgium
21/01/2010 – Mephisto – Barcelona, Spain
22/01/2010 – Santana 27 – Bilbao, Spain
23/01/2010 – Grind In The Veins Metal Fest 2010 – Vigo, Spain
24/01/2010 – Ritmo & Compas – Madrid, Spain
30/01/2010 – Siddharta - Prato/Florence, Italy
31/01/2010 – Pieffe Factory – Gorizia, Italy

This is the latest tour schedule as of the date of posting, including the changes of venue that were made to the British leg.

Filed under: Death Metal News, Death Metal Show Announcements — Tags: American Death Metal, Death Metal, Death Metal Festivals, Death Metal Live Shows — ObscuraHessian @ 21:18 — Comments (0)

December 28, 2009

Goreaphobia – Mortal Repulsion

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Goreaphobia is one of the great names from the old-school of American Death Metal that were unable to solidify their reputation with a full-length release, but they weren’t left totally obscured due to the infamous personnel of Death Metal warriors – largely of Incantation stock – who have contributed to this band’s line-up over the years. With ‘Mortal Repulsion’, Goreaphobia have finally crossed the Styx and, with the wisdom of old seers, address the nightmares that such a thanatopsical journey brings to life. Those familiar with these veteran’s earlier recordings, such as the barbaric ‘Morbidious Pathology’ demo, will notice that this album shows an highly controlled approach to Goreaphobia’s morbid style of art. This is a fair compromise for the lack of youthful energy, as the sound is an accumulation of a lot of technique that has been refined over the years by American Death and Black Metal bands, and guided by the same intelligence, also shows disdain for the cheap tricks employed by bands who should be performing nu-emo-metalcore in a circus somewhere.

The guitars have a noticeably sludgy quality not unlike Incantation, which lends itself well to the diversity of guitarwork on exhibition, while kept well anchored by the drumming, equally multi-dimensional in its awareness of primitivism within a fairly demanding instrumental framework. The sense of space conjured is often remarkable, such as the ambiential ‘Negative Screams’, which is like an inversion of Pestilence’s ‘Proliferous Souls’. Haunting melodies interact with rhythmical progressions in a manner not dissimilar to the older demos, but the flavour here is more like Immolation and their own inaugural breath of hellfire that was ‘Dawn of Possession’, and the subtle layering of secondary guitars and bass even recalls the likes of Demoncy. The vocal work of Gamble has a strange aura of older, more primal Black Metal such as N.M.E. or Hellhammer (whose presence is also felt during the down-tempo moments of the album that are laden with a Doomy sense of desolation) at times. ‘Mortal Repulsion’ is a great amalgamation of this unholy lineage of pure and nihilistic underground Metal, bringing to attention the fear of life inherent in the fear of death, and the dominion that can be held over such neuroses which fade within the depths of the abyss.

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: American Death Metal, Death Metal, Nihilism — ObscuraHessian @ 23:04 — Comments (1)

December 24, 2009

Correspondence of Tranquility – Interview with Disaffected

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The early nineties was replete with Death Metal bands that are now legendary, contributing to the cult’s creative height, but largely from the now infamous concentration zones of northern Europe and across the Americas. This left several adjacent scenes with relatively little notoreity and condemned some first-rate albums to obscurity. Our review of Disaffected’s ‘Vast‘ touched upon one such example from Portugal, so we decided to uncover this legendary band even further by talking with their evil bassist, António Gião about the past, present and future of Disaffected and Portuguese Death Metal.

ObscuraHessian: As Disaffected are still unknown to many, despite the legendary status of ‘Vast’ as a pillar of Death Metal wisdom, could you give a brief history of the band and what led you to join?

Gião: Disaffected were formed in 1991 by drummer Joaquim Aires and Sergio Paulo (guitar/vocals), as a Death/Thrash metal band. Later adding Zakk (guitar) and Sergio Monteiro on bass, the band released ‘…After…’ demo in ‘92, and later that same year we were included in ‘The Birth of a Tragedy‘ (MTM ‘92), a vinyl compilation of Portuguese Metal bands with the song ‘Echoes Remain’. In 1993, the line-up changed; Zakk and Sergio Monteiro left the band and I joined the band, invited by former bassist. Later, vocalist Gonçalo Cunha and guest vocalist Nuno Loureiro (Exiled) joined the band and we performed a lot of shows with this line-up.

In 1994, keyboard player Fatima Geronimo and vocalist Jose Costa (Sacred Sin) joined the band and with this line-up our music had become more progressive and complex. In 1995 we got signed by Skyfall Records (Portugal) and released ‘Vast’ full-length album in October 1995. This album was recorded at Namouche Studios (Lisbon) and produced by Marsten Bailey. A videoclip for the song ‘Vast – The Long Tomorrow‘ was recorded to promote the album ‘Vast’, and was aired on MTV, VIVA, MCM and RTP (Portuguese Television) and we’ve also covered ‘Seasons in the Abyss‘ for the Slayer tribute album ‘Slatanic Slaughter II‘ (Black Sun Records ‘96). In 1997 due to internal problems, we stop activity.
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But in 2007, me and guitar player Sérgio Paulo, decided to reunite the band after 10 years of silence, and after a few meetings with the band members discussing a possible band reunion, the decision was “Let’s do it!!!”. A lot had passed with the band and the band members during these inactive years. Each had gone their own way in music and life. Due to the tragic accident of Sergio Paulo (guitarist) in 2004, all members got together again for the purpose of supporting a good friend. Sergio was lucky to survive a coma sleep of 2 weeks. His force of living had made him come back to us, and he had (literally) to restart his whole life, like being born again. He recovered most his abilities, and even his guitar mastery is back in 99%. A lot of things he had lost in his memory due to this accident, but he had never forgot DISAFFECTED music and his friends!

…And its coming back to life! Keyboard player Bianca and drummer O joined the band and the reunion happens! In 2008, the song ‘Vast – The Long Tomorrow’ of Disaffected’s debut album ‘Vast’ was included in the ‘Entulho Sonoro 5‘, a compilation CD of the April ‘08 edition of the Portuguese underground magazine, ‘Underworld‘. Now we are structuring and putting the finishing touches on 10 songs that will be part of our next full length album, which will be recorded in Urban Insect Studios (Olival Basto, Lisbon) in May 2010 with producer Fernando Matias (F.E.V.E.R., Target35, Moonspell), for a late 2010 release.

ObscuraHessian: The Iberian peninsula is not very well-known around the world for its Metal. Was there a strong Death Metal scene in the early 90’s and how have things changed for this underground music cult in your country?

Gião: Portugal in the 90s had very good bands in death metal genre, but due to geographical location, away from the centre of Europe, away from the circuit of tours, ended up having a premature end. National labels betting little to promote domestic and internationally, and it was very difficult for bands to play outside the country. At the present, here, there’s a good movement, good Death Metal bands with great quality and with the technological evolution of media and the internet is easier to promote. There is more publicity and recognition on national and international levels…no such thing as the days of the ‘Vast’.

ObscuraHessian: So are any other good bands hidden from the rest of the world that we should know about?

Gião: I could list many good bands from Portugal, but wanted to leave a great name in Portuguese Death Metal scene of the 90s…Thormenthor!

ObscuraHessian: ‘Vast’ is one of those albums that moves away from the morbid and violent dimension of Death Metal, but unlike many other bands of the same generation, it remained as uncompromising and brutal in its exploration of deeper consciousness. Can you talk a little about the musical and philosophical influences of this album?

Gião: ‘Vast’, as the name implies has a very large extent on the level of composition and musical influences. All the musicians had the most varied musical influences and backgrounds, from Classical music to Jazz, through the dark and obscure, but always with the intention to give a personal touch and unique style to progressive Death Metal. We tried to invent the style Disaffected, and I think that we did. At the level of the lyrics, the theme was dreams, illusions, human condition, cosmos and man’s interaction with the universe.

ObscuraHessian: During the quieter, contemplative moments of the album, we hear a lot more of the bass. Is your background in Jazz? What other music influences and inspires you on a personal level?

Gião: Yes, I’ve a musical background in Jazz. I began playing bass guitar at age 16. I studied musical formation at Sinatra Music Conservatory in 1990 and during the years of ‘93 and ‘94, I studied electric bass at the Jazz School of Hot Clube Portugal. I have many musical influences from Metal to Jazz, through to Funk and Rock. I also have several musicians in a variety of musical aspects as a reference, but there is a Jazz bassist who definitely impressed and inspired me: Jaco Pastorius. Guitarist Sergio Paulo also has musical background of Jazz and is currently musical teacher. And the other band members also have musical formation knowledge.

ObscuraHessian: Could you give a round-up of your work in other bands? I’ve been trying to track down Exiled’s ‘Ascencion of Grace’ with no luck!

Gião: I’ve played with many artists and bands as a studio musician and as a performer too. At the present, I play bass guitar with Disaffected and Target35 (Progressive Rock Experimental). In the past, I played bass guitar with Papo Seco (Hardcore) and recorded a 4-track demo tape, produced by Luis Barros (Tarantula) at Rec’n'Roll Studios (Valadares, Porto) in March ‘92, and later that same year the band changed name to Grito Suburbano before we split up. Since ‘93 till ‘94, I played bass guitar with Exiled (Death Metal) and recorded Exiled’s album ‘Ascencion of Grace’ (Slime Records ‘94), produced by Zé Motor at Tcha Tcha Tcha Studios (Algés, Lisbon).

In 1994, I played bass guitar with a Jazz sextet featuring vocalist star Patrícia Fernandes, and we performed a show at Festa do Avante’94 (Seixal) in September of that same year. During the Summer ‘97, I played bass guitar at Flood (Alternative Rock) as the support band of Santos & Pecadores Summer Tour ‘97. In March ‘02, in the aftermath of our Death Metal project Skinblade (1999-2002), me and drummer O decided to form a new band called Sybila, based on avant-garde style, and in December ‘04, we entered Studio G22 (Feijó, Almada) with producer Paulo Vieira (Firstborn) to record the promotional song ‘Cycles’. The band split up in 2008 due to professional commitments of the musicians.

During the year of 2006, we at Target35 performed a lot of shows to promote our first promo CD, which was recorded in May ‘06, produced by Makoto Yagyu (If Lucy Fell) at Black Sheep Studios (Mem Martins, Sintra). In the fall 2008, we at Target35 recorded 5 songs at Urban Insect Studios (Olival Basto, Lisbon) with producer Fernando Matias (F.E.V.E.R.). These 5 songs are included in our new EP ‘Post Rock Mortem’, self-released in May ‘09. Briefly, this was my work as a musician in other projects as well as Disaffected over all these years.

ObscuraHessian: The great news you mentioned is that Disaffected will return to the studio and unleash new disharmonic soundwaves upon the world. What is the band trying to achieve with the upcoming release?

Gião: Musically, we intend to continue with the style that characterizes Disaffected, trying to explore new levels of music, sometimes melodic sometimes dissonant. In this new album the lyrical context consists in two parts. Part 1 with dark and obscure lyrics, showing the route of the band from the stop until the meeting, and then in Part 2 we will try to depict the rebirth of the band with lyrics more encouraging and positive. We’ll sign a new label contract too, but for now, we have nothing confirmed yet.

ObscuraHessian: No similar deal with Skyfall Records again, then? Hopefully, you’ll have a better distribution this time round.

Gião: No. The contract with Skyfall Records ended a few years ago and we currently have no label. But it is guaranteed that the label who launch our next album will have to give us guarantees a good distribution and promotion. After we sign a new deal and release the album, we can also confirm tours and other kind of promotions.

ObscuraHessian: Any other subliminal messages you’d like to convey?

Gião: Support Death Metal all over the world!

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Disaffected will be returning to the studio in May 2010 to record their new album scheduled for an October release.

Filed under: Death Metal Interviews — Tags: Cosmos, Death Metal, Portuguese Death Metal, Progressive Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 21:17 — Comments (0)

December 22, 2009

Death Metal Album of the Week: Asgard – To a Golden Age

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Winter has officially launched its campaign of death in the lands of the Northern Hemisphere. We mark this celestial transition by digging up another forgotten classic from out of the snow and ice. An unusual Death Metal album from France that bears the aesthetic sensibilities of a more Nordic adventure, Asgard’s ‘To a Golden Age’ can be most succinctly described as ‘Viking Death Metal’. This was nothing new at the time of release in 1996; by then, Unleashed had already integrated Viking themes into their signature style of Swedish Death Metal. With Asgard, we have a more naturalistic approach to these themes. Somewhat inauthentic but nonetheless epic and folky guitar-work propels endless fleets of warships across the stormy seas in a dramatic clash of Metallica’s ‘Ride the Lightning’ and ‘Master of Puppets’ with the blasting, melodic savagery of ‘Blod Draum‘, including the Norwegian Black Metal elements that Molested work into their own sound. In this sense, the album is not unlike the more advanced Greek Black Metal bands such as Rotting Christ, if the Heavy Metal-inspired melodic progressions were superimposed onto a more updated and impulsive, Death Metal sense of composition. Due to the fairly flat production, there is an unbecoming lack of weight to the instrumentalism, but the epic scope of these songs and their competent arrangements still triumphantly channel relentless barbarism, brooding tension and reflective wisdom in compact odes to the times of battle when gods and men fought for the nine worlds.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Black Metal, Death Metal, French Black Metal, Pagan Metal, Speed Metal, Viking Death Metal — ObscuraHessian @ 23:38 — Comments (2)

December 19, 2009

Heavens Below & Heavens Above

As we now have ample space to look back over the year that has transpired, let us visit only two Black Metal albums released earlier in 2009 and in doing so, we might illuminate the difference in the spirit of these artists, though their influences and outward gaze follow a similar trajectory.

Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue with the Stars

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With this album, Blut Aus Nord’s habit of jumping from one established school of Black Metal thought to another has been replaced by a slightly more focused exploration of the abstract ideas that Vindsval’s tried to find an appropriate voice for since after the release of the crowd-pleasing ‘The Work Which Transforms God’. The continutations from that album and the following ‘Odinist’ lie in the same dissonant and synthesized riffs, but the template here is more Burzumic in the sense that songs specifically seem to mould themselves well to the approach of ‘My Journey to the Stars‘ from Count Grishnackh’s self-titled work. In addition, as there is a distinctly Eastern flavour to the metaphysics which Blut Aus Nord has arranged very eruditely over the course of the album, corresponding musical themes are ever-present.

As unusual as it is, in Black Metal music, to come across traces of an European longing for the cosmically affirmed existence mixed with a very Buddhistic negation of the unreal, these aren’t incompatible ideas and have been demonstrated in European art since Sanskrit and Pali literature first arrived in Germany and in the hands of Richard Wagner. However, there seems to be an unavoidable unsubtlelty that plights bands who are this radically overt in their application of Indian and Oriental themes, which even Blut Aus Nord’s mastery of ethereal sound effects hasn’t been able to disguise. Where this becomes present is in sync with the downfall of the music in general. The composition is a highlight reel of riffs that have some relevance to each other, but too often feel contrived and edited in the attempt to bring about some change in the dynamics of the music. This leaves the songs often rushing towards their conclusions in quite a generic manner, or going nowhere in the same manner of fellow French bands S.V.E.S.T. and Deathspell Omega. Riffs are then overlaid with leads or interspersed with patterns that are Eastern sounding, which does break the dip in interest, but only vaguely hints at where the artist wants to go and doesn’t actually take it there. The leads sound especially tacked on, possessing none of the integralism of a Sorcier Des Glaces on his ‘Snowland‘ masterpiece.

In the end, the psychedelic and cosmic sounds of ‘Memoria Vetusta II’ are well-intentioned but it comes across more like a New Age soundtrack than possessing the profundity of a Steve Roach album, for example. It is, though, Blut Aus Nord’s best work to date and does actually give hope of an interesting follow-up if the band gets totally lost in these conversations with the universe and not totally bored with it, needing to change ‘direction’ again.

Midnight Odyssey – Firmament

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It’s almost impossible for some Black Metal bands, breathing only the contaminated air of darkness, to escape the grasp of Burzum’s music. Midnight Odyssey’s ‘Firmament’ is another highly Burzum-influenced album, but this one from down under refers to the Count’s most accessible work so far, ‘Filosofem’ with some hints of the earlier albums. This amounts to revisiting those thick but purposeful, contra-shoegazing, melodic guitars, distorted screams and the rolling, equitarean kick-drumming.

Countless bands have tried and failed to capture the Romantic visions that first gave rise to this style, because it’s technically quite easy to execute, but such simplicity doesn’t demand technical ability (mimicry) nor even a thorough understanding of such visions (erudition) but possessing the sight itself, so that the music can live and emanate as simply as we breathe. ‘Firmament’ fills this role excellently as a series of interactive sonic portraits that are laden with a sense of ferality amidst the cosmos. Epic melodies ring sharply like the emotions of a soul that finds beauty and the true conditions of life in the unknown, wild and organic frontier, far away from the constructions of our artificially-induced desires. These emotions become enmeshed in the depths of the night and senses heighten to an active sense of awareness, re-uniting struggle and survival with a cosmic context, and in a manner highly reminiscent of ‘Jesus’ Tod‘ with an increasing sense of immersion created by a focus on guitar ambience rather than phrasal (though continual), percussive or rhythmic elements. Infact, even though the drums are very well applied to create an engaging sense of pace, it would be interesting to hear the entire album sans percussion. Keyboards are applied both in the manner of Burzum’s reflective ambient pieces, and as a subtle, ethereal layer over the woods-shrouded Black Metal music, giving the album its reflective and almost panentheistic (like the American Transcendentalists) dimension.

A great debut album and although its form is very familiar and pretty easy to grasp, this is one which will have the biggest impact on those that have two feet grounded in the mud and grass, covered in bruises and wounds from bushes and thickets, but still with their eyes on the stars beyond the heighest leaves, breathing deeply in the all-embracing darkness of the night.

Filed under: Death Metal Music Reviews — Tags: Australian Black Metal, Black Metal, Burzum, Cosmos, French Black Metal, Religion — ObscuraHessian @ 20:30 — Comments (1)

December 15, 2009

Death Metal Album of the Week: Kataklysm – Sorcery

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Just like another Canadian Death Metal band by the name of Cryptopsy, it’s hard to imagine that there was a time when Kataklysm were once an unstoppable juggernaut of hyper-blasting, cthonic cacophony. ‘Sorcery’ is a continuation of the ideas set forth in their ‘The Mystical Gate of Reincarnation’ EP, refining the sense of melody that formed the skeleton of those wildly fluctuating epics of metempsychotic insanity. These signature phrases aren’t subject to as much of a riff salad, as this time Kataklysm have a tighter playing style in general. Majestic, evil riffs collide with conventional but brutally executed Death Metal rhythms that are churned up from the bowels of the Earth and shredded apart with a neoclassical flair for melody, truly harnessing the tension it creates. Showing the compositional prowess that sets this earlier offering apart from their later albums, Kataklysm seamlessly combine these patterns of malignant sound into evolved riffs of totality, like consciousness opening up to nihilistic visions of simultaneous creation, destruction and rebirth. The multi-layered, textural assault of Sylvain Houde’s vocal work is awesome not just in terms of how frighteningly bestial it sounds but also the intelligent sense of musicianship. The incantations are subjected to the exact dynamics of the compositions, rather than the typical rhythmic awareness of Death Metal vocals. Duhamel’s drumming is full of character and complexity is acheived in the balance of restraint and the height of rapid-fire blasting. Their first full-length album, this is one worth digging past most of their later discography to uncover. The follow-up, ‘Temple of Knowledge’ is worthy but would be the last to include the vital contribution of Monseuir Houde, signalling the degeneration of this former mystical entity.

Filed under: Death Metal Album of the Week — Tags: Canadian Death Metal, Death Metal, Hyper-blast, Mysticism — ObscuraHessian @ 20:42 — Comments (2)

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