Death Metal Album of the Week: Nocturnus - The Key
Album Reviews: Diocletian - Doom Cult
Live Reviews: July 21st 2010 - Inquisition in Vancouver, Canada
Book Reviews: Daniel Ekeroth - Swedish Death Metal
Film Reviews: Cannibal Holocaust
Essays and Research: Pyrrhic Victories - A Brief Study of Artistic Decline
Morbid Scriptorium: A Museum of Metal Zines
In order to establish a solid, even scientifical basis for the study and appreciation of Death Metal, we are collecting and digitizing diverse materials related to Death Metal history, such as zines, flyers and demo covers. The death metal zine reference center and the death metal art repository are at your disposal. If you appreciate the contents of these archives, please get in touch and contribute something from your own collections in order to preserve memory, information and knowledge and to save these rare gems from being buried by the sands of time: The Past is Alive. We also would like all our noble readers to stay active in their own productive manner and through their contacts spreading the word about all these projects, archives and analyses which ultimately achieve their meaning by the responsive awareness of the intelligent observers somewhere out there, who prowl as wolves among the sheep. Here are some Death Metal related flyers, links and banners you can spread like the plague in order for our hordes and communication networks to grow towards world domination and eternal victory.
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.
I agree that even down to the melodies, this music is quite comical but it still avoids the populist kind of ‘Hollywood evil’ sound that conveys none of those occult moods that Necros Christos manage to capture.
Comment by ObscuraHessian — January 29, 2010 @ 01:47