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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.

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.

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’.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

Death Metal Album of the Week: Infernäl Mäjesty – 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”; 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!

Onwards to a decade of dominance

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!