Megiddo
The Atavism Of Evil
[Barbarian Wrath]


This album is the soundtrack to the Judeo-Christian holocaust. This album is one of the most brutal, vile, hateful pieces of black metal I've ever heard. Even The Devil and the Whore couldn't have prepared me for this vicious onslaught of hatred and blasphemy. But before I keep gushing, let me get on to why it's the best black metal album of 2002.

As with The Devil and the Whore, the album consists of new songs and older demo-era songs mixed together, capped off with two covers. The sound is a bit more developed. The guitar sounds are just as biting as before, but a slightly more full bass sound and more balanced drum sounds (with big toms, an audible kick, and more even drum-to-cymbal ratio) give it a much more solid sound while retaining the general ancient black metal feeling. ChorazaiM's vocals, though, are just as harsh as ever.

The songs "The Final War", "Pentagram", and "A Hymn to the Apocalypse" are much improved from their demo versions, with "Pentagram" possibly being the best of the lot. But the new songs. . . Oh, what glorious blasphemy we have with these new songs! The album opener, "The Christwhore", starts with tolling bells and a short, slow riff before opening to the upbeat thrashing we all know and love, complete with some lovely vocal blasphemy in the Profanatica/Cross Sodomy vein. The closer of the original songs on the album is the title track, "The Atavism of Evil", and this one mirrors the song "The Oath" from the first album--a slow, trudging melody fills out the bulk of the song while lyrically we're given one of the most intelligent and thorough eviscerations of the Judeo-Christian myth ever put to music. In between these two extremes are "Annihilation Antichrist" and "The Summoning". "Annihilation Antichrist" is another slower song with a heavy riff straight out of Black Sabbath, while "The Summoning" is one of the more upbeat thrashers, like an updated Bathory song from The Return--again, both featuring great lyrics. And finally, of course, are the covers of "Dance of the Dead" and "Witch Hunt". But I have to leave something for you to discover while listening, don't I?

Never before has a band delved so deep, musically, into the history of black metal while still advancing the ideology forward. In short, this album is a modern masterpiece, and, in my opinion, is the best black metal album of the year. It blows away every expectation I had for the followup to The Devil and the Whore, and thus makes the perfect companion piece for those who already have the first album and a great introduction if you're one of the unlucky souls who passed on the first Megiddo album. Absolutely essential if you have even the most remote interest in black metal.


© 2003 lord vic