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 @ December 30, 2009 23:05 — Comments (4)
From the description it sounds like a Sinister clone, will give it a listen though.
Comment by Morbid_lad — December 31, 2009 @ 08:16
To my ears this was better than anything Sinister ever did. Besides, they were roughly contemporaries.
Comment by Devamitra — December 31, 2009 @ 12:08
[...] 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 least Metal album, [...]
Pingback by DEATH METAL: Death Metal Music, Death Metal Bands and Death Metal Culture at Deathmetal.org — December 31, 2009 @ 19:37
[...] but uniform rhythmic basis emerges melodies of varying complexities like Ceremony’s ‘Tyranny From Above‘, but it’s punched out by the same AI that must have been responsible for the [...]
Pingback by DEATH METAL: Death Metal News, Death Metal Music and Death Metal Culture at Deathmetal.Org — April 8, 2010 @ 13:52