Martyrdoom Productions, run by Dead Congregation frontman A.V., reissued Infester‘s long out of print classic To the Depths, In Degradation on CD and vinyl LP earlier this year. I purchased a copy of the CD version myself to review for our readers benefit. The record was never originally released on vinyl and being over fifty minutes long, the LP reissue will have compromised sound quality due to narrower groove spacing and all the limitations of the vinyl format such as the compression of the cutting lathe, high and low pass filtering, and mono bass.
The first thing to notice is that the art is cropped. The individual “Tilmann” who did the artwork and layout, zoomed in on the art, cropped it, got rid of the block-type Infester logo, and replaced it with a generic font. The back cover insert is also different and just like the original, has misspelled track names but with different typos from the original Moribund Records CD. The liner notes by drummer Dario Derna also insist that Infester were totally never racists or national socialists and that Infester never took their imagery and lyrics too seriously in order to signal the over-protected, coddled, safe-spaced millennials that Infester do not want to send them to concentration camps but just want a tenner from their pockets. The famous photo of the band with the pentagram backdrop with the swastika in the middle from the original CD booklet has been oversaturated on the reissue to remove the swastika in a clear case of censorship pandering to political correctness.
The sound is thankfully intact. Infester’s profound Beherit and Morpheus Descends influenced material is still there in all its atmospheric glory. The majestic ambiance remains. The only change Dan Lowndes made from from the original Moribund CD is that the volume levels between the tracks have been evenly leveled similar to the recent Beatles CD boxsets so listeners do not have to adjust the volume between tracks, which were almost unmastered and totally uncompressed. All of the dynamics are still there, including the almost noise burst sound effects. Dario’s drumming is still organic and fluid with good snap and great transients. This remaster doesn’t improve the original sound like Demilich‘s 20th Adversary of Emptiness or Earache‘s “Full Dynamic Range” series but doesn’t really ruin anything like Relapse‘s horrible hyper-compressed plasticization of everything they own the rights to. Overall, this CD reissue isn’t worth buying for anyone who owns the original but is an excellent purchase for new fans to hear To the Depths, In Degradation in high fidelity glory rather than flat, rolled-off, and butchered MP3s.
Purchase the reissue from Martyrdoom Productions here.
Tags: Black Metal, censorship, compact disc, dan lowndes, death metal, Infester, Martyrdoom Productions, political correctness, reissue, remaster, review, to the depths in degradation
Including the “Darkness Unveiled” demo songs would’ve been a nice bonus but other than that, I have no complaints. Dan Lowndes was the right guy for the job, and it’d be a welcome addition for Martyrdoom to get into the cult reissue game down the road.
In pains reissue WHEN?
“….the swastika in the middle from the original CD booklet has been oversaturated on the reissue to remove the swastika in a clear case of censorship pandering to political correctness”
come on maraat, what censorship and political correctness are you refering to? the swastika in its nazi-form is a symbol that is not allowed to use in several countries because of obvious symbolicism it stands for (by this i’m not referring to original swastikas and their symbolicism from bevor the 20th century). And even more than that it pushes a band or a release into a direction where it most probably doesn’t belong (like this one here for sure). To widen the horizon even more: could you imagine that in the 23 years that have passed since this photoshoot even the infester members themselves wouldn’t want to take such photos and release them like they did in more infantile years? ever heard that people evolve from teen-age to mature-age?
Infester in general is an artifact of when they were immature kids.
Taking out the swastika of their own accord isn’t censorship but it it lame and worthy of derision.
Another one to fuel the eternal fire of the incinerator.
devolve
Infester pandering to the PC/SJW crowd by removing the art on the back cover is selling out in my book.
Death to the Untermenschen.
I have an original CD. The cropped image is my preference, but I don’t think it matters in terms of conveying visually the atmosphere of the music. If you think it does, that would be an interesting point of commentary.
For me this stands as one of the top 5 DM releases…
Bands should start putting swastikas, totenkopfs & SS runes on every album, give everyone an aneurysm. Gotta break the pc curse somehow. Eventually all music will be called racist & outlawed unless it has some space cricket screaming kill whitey for 20 minutes.
Real life got in the way I guess.
They shoulda spelt it “INFESTOR”.
The Beatles should always hurt your ears. Reissues should just be reprints of what already existed as is, none of this remastering (original Demilich production/sound fitted their music better than the one on the 20th Adversary compilation), etc. The artwork being changed/edit breaks the deal. Also, these long paragraphs of “we picked up instruments and decided to hopefully create something half decent” interviews makes me not want to buy this. Someone should just do what Demilich did on their site for these out of print CDs because then you can make it yourself without the hands of time/labels/pc-systems fucking with it and then selling it to you at a premium.
Gotta whore yourself out for those few extra bux
I’d like to play a 10 second clip of this album for people who claim to like it and see if they can name which track it is. This album is by retards for retards.
Never mind. Total retard here.
What a lame label. Dead Congregation cassettes? It was not recorded on to tape, but will be released on vinyl and cassette to make idiots spend more money and think they have some rare or “organic sounding” “best” version. Either way the music sucks and the landfills keep growing.