DAY 2

Imagine a warm place by the seaside. Hot sand like flour, a large cup beside the hammock brimming with sweet ripe fruits and grilled fish. Drinking white rum with a straw from a huge coconut. Now reverse that: Finland is the exact opposite. From a mediterranean perspective, it’s a stern, unassuming place. Compared to our cuisine the spectrum of taste is relatively narrow, mostly from what I could experience about cream, herrings, salmon and vodka. Yet, once you calibrate your tastes there are a lot of interesting variations ready to be picked up. The morning after the warm up event I went  to the city hall and market to buy something that looked like local food. The first thing I noticed was that they consume a lot of soup. Soup’s Finland equivalent of pasta fpr us pagliaccio-italianbaffi-neri-mandolino-pizza, soups over which they pour solid slabs of cream, just to make it all the more unhealthier for your cardiovascular system. Considering I am an obese person I was totally in my element as that city had the largest number of overweight people I have ever seen. Thick boned maybe, but I have seen very few skinny guys, and girls were mostly lovely smooth and curvy *deep breath*.

Raw fish is probably a blessing in these places as it helps maintaining arteries clean out all that saturated fat floating in a lot of dishes. The old fishmonger probably had a soft spot for me as after buying some random herrings she offered me a nice potato and salmon soup which was nothing short of delicious.

Other shit I ate late in the afternoon.

Another mandatory stop when I travel abroad is the supermarket. I am a freak for colored, disgustingly sweet sodas and drinks: to me the more artificial and chemical looking the better and this supermarket was like ridiculously filled with that shit – from fruit flavored water (what the?) to a wall of yoghurts and milk derived random things I could not decrypt (oddly, very few labels had english translations and the 4G signal was feeble so I could not check),

The wailing wall.

Like… Finnish variation of our vin brulè (mulled wine)

Event Day 1

We had the chance to drink a couple of beers at the Monttu pub (which actually looked way cooler than what I could tell from Google Street View before the show started especially considering there was another bigger place downstairs where the afterparty shows took place.

Monntu by evening – old guys in slippers

More drinks right out of the venue were accompanied by meeting a few new friends from all over Europe and Americas. It was cool to see people I only had written letters of paper and ink decades ago, and was also nice to meet new people. The atmosphere was so laid back and relaxed I felt like being on vacation. Cheers to all the guys I met from Spain, Poland, Estonia, USA, Chile, Germany and a couple more from Italy as well! The merchandise rotated a bit and I was tempted to buy a couple of books but some of them I already owned in different editions, other were frighteningly expensive, the shirts were too small for me and vinyl I didn’t want to carry so I just got some more tapes and let it be for now.

According to the girl who had this bottle, the best part of this liquor is that when you throw it up it’s like washing your teeth.

Witchcraft

The real event starts out in full blast with one of the bands I looked forward to see live the most. Let me state two things before I start:

1. I am totally impressed by how well the youngest bands (year of formation 2000+) did at this festival. I flew there probably mostly for the “veteran” names but I was totally blown away by the newer bands. In more than one case I was more taken by their shows than the other ones but that after all is the reason you go to concerts – to be disappointed by bands you like on records and reconsider other ones you previously dismissed when listening to studio recordings.
2. I am completely lost for old Beherit and I am a huge freak for the necromantic armageddon nuclear atomic satanic sound of black fucking metal or as they say “Metal of Death” – give me Blasphemy and Naked Whipper any time above all the Norwegian stuff combined.

Seeing Witchery live was a little bit like being in this land in 1990 for a few minutes. The pure bestial necro-bastard suffocating sound, the raspy, phlegmy vocals, the distorted and bass-soaked crackling sound was like a whirlwind of old school blasphemy in an ageless venue. Despite the very simple structures the result was impressive. Black, like Thash metal, is all about the riffs after all (as well as aesthetics, let’s not dismiss that). You certainly could go unnoticed with a bad Death Metal riff, but there is no hiding in this branch of music. Total 8+ performance for me, everything was just as it should have been, including the ugly corpsepaint. Brilliant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEqQ8AIy1CQ (video not mine, check the channel)

Pestigore

This is a band I was obsessed with during my old tapetrading days. Like I wrote on the pre-festival rants, I was a role playing nerd (well I still am, but bear with me) and the name Pestigor(e) stuck because it was the name of a pestilence demon in the Warhammer fictional setting. Pestigore certainly had some solid Bolt Thrower influences in sound, so why not in the looks? At the time IIRC Bolt Thrower even had an endorsement from Games Workshop (together with a terrible HM band whose name I can’t remember). So I finally managed to see this band live after over twenty years (by the way the average age at the festival was way higher that I even imagined thanks Pestigor this time I was not the older fuck around!) and it definitely delivered. Impressive show chock full of adrenaline, you could really perceive when passion still drives fingers and throat I guess. I am not a big fan of heavy chugging but framed in a contest of blasting and BTesque sound everything was in order. Pestigore basically gave me what I was expecting, nothing more nothing  less, honest stuff. I shall rate this as 7.

Gorephilia

I mostly compare Gorephilia as the Morbid Angel – “Formulas” era – of Finnish Death Metal, plus a couple of other more traditional stuff like Diabolic. Their sound is atypical for a Finnish band but not slamming cricket vocals kind of American. They started out with “Black Horns” and shot 7 tracks of pretty much intense, well structured stuff. This is a band of 10+ years of experience so it shows. Flawless but maybe without that dark touch that makes the Finnish sound stand out. I’ll say 7 here, maybe a little more.

Demilich

What can I say, this band has been in my top favorite three ever for a long time. Actually I still do believe they’re one of the greatest bands of all time. There is something cryptical and yet completely AWARE in their sound which sounds just touched by some cosmically evil grace (more possibly a cenobite-like kind of divine), Demilich is the gate on earth to the sixteen-sixth regional dimension. A work of art of twisted guitar structures, trippy names and classy artworks. It is a MASSIVE concept, sculpted with micron level precision. Shit, even their logo is unique. I can’t hold back the claim that this was also my favorite band at the festival, a band that also showed to be able to play their songs flawlessly AND faster than recorded on album. Singing along like a teenager, I drank avidly every second I was there in front of the stage staring at a piece of time collapsing into itself in a swollen ball of encrypted signals. Not only the show was perfect on EVERY single aspect, including the low ceiling and flashing lighting that just continued to eat itself at every frame, but it was also beyond cool to meet these guys I have been in touch for so long after the show ended. They’re also quite different from what I expected, from some interviews I thought Antti was some kind of anti social guy but that turned out to be quite the opposite, he’s a nerdy guy with a black and bleak sense of humour just like me, ah ah. The drummer Mikko was the coolest, most laid back man I have met in all my staying. Seeing such an amazing band being made up of such amazing people was just the perfect peak of the whole trip to me and still makes me wonder about all that shit about rock stars and all the fuss ordinary people go through for their shitty bands :D. This is a show that oscillates between 9 and a 10 in my book.

Demilich actually do not shy using technology

Cemetery Fog

Meh, wish I could like this band better. I do like the doom-death idea, hell some of my favorite bands could be filed as “Doom/Death”, but I cannot stand the “70’s Doom” vibe i find on some of Cemetery Fogs riffs. I am not a Black Sabbath fan, I do have some albums of course but I am definitely not a diehard freak. But I definitely loathe everything that tries to come close that wailing distorted sound. Influences aside, there is a thin line between unripe and minimalist and I somehow believe Cemetery Fog are kinda unripe as well. They oscillate between barely OK to No-No for my tastes. Their performance to me was a 5.

Maveth

Maveth is a good band, like with Gorephilia if I had to find them a place in a record shelf I’d go with “American Death”, with some strong Swedish crunch added in. Maveth’s sound is elliptical, riffs that churn and swallow themselves in cycles dragging you into the vortex. The show to me was quite impressive for its hypnotic properties, few bands manage to be heavy as fuck and create long waves of crushing sound like them, good stuff. 7 in my book too.

Convulse

Let’s try to forget the 1994 album “Reflections”, some blood clot must have hit these guys brains back then. But I heard the new album “Evil Prevails” several times before giving up to Convulse, because “World Without God” was solid shit. And honestly speaking, I was not completely inspired by their live show either. From what I could hear they mostly did stuff from the first album and just one song from the braindead period and just two from the last one. Whatever. I just could not get much energy at all – I would not go beyond a 5.

Now find a good riff here and tell me, because I could not find any:

Archgoat

There are bands like Convulse (or the Swedish Sorcery for instance) that just can’t make it to capture their old feelings no matter how much they struggle, and then there is Archgoat, which are every inch as good as the day they recorded “Angelcunt” almost 25 years ago. If there is a better Black Metal band existing today, let me know because the two shows I saw by them were earth shattering. Archgoat live is a forced trip to hell with your body submerged in broken glass. The only time I saw anything this mesmerizing recently was Anatomia and that was another genre entirely. Not only they play the perfect form of Black Metal / “Metal of Death” but they do it just as good on record than live. Powerful show with a huge punch  and possibly in the top three I have seen at the festival. I really like this band, but it really is even better than I can describe, if you ever have the chance to see them live, DO IT. Full 9 to the show.

Purtenance

This bands places in between the two before in terms of keeping the flame alive. Pre-reunion “Drowned records” Purtenance were in my top list with their unmatched brutality and powerful sound and you know what the last album is also good I think, not exactly as good as the old one, if not for a crisper, cleaner, more modern sound (which I do not like, obviously), but almost as good as “I’d buy it”. On stage however I was not hooked at all. I could hear a lot of chugs and a lot of crunch but no feeling at all. I’d go for a 6, just because there was nothing systematically wrong with the show in itself, but you know, I was expecting something better.

The Afterparty #1

We were drinking and frolicking during the after-show so I watched the three bands playing at the Monntu just a little, mostly listening to them on a seat while doing else. I remember Axeslaughter being somehow fun with their vicious, raw sounding thrashing Death, the rest however was mostly to forget, not to say shitty *wink*.

Welcome back small mummies and monsters. As you could see from the logo above I just recently returned home after this fantastic festival which took place in Finland last week. This is also the first english post in a long time, as for over an year I wrote reviews and some general rants in Italian language on this parallel blog called “Abominazioni“. The experiment was certainly cool considering I certainly master my native language much better than English, but visiting the FDMM made my mind clear like it never was in the last 15 years. I might use that blog again sometimes but here is the place where the Nuclear Abominations lore belongs, and so here I will stay in the near future. In all honesty this might just be the only post you’ll read for a while and there is a reason for that which I will unveil a couple of lines below, at the end of this long rant.

So here it is, the detailed report of this amazing weekend. It will NOT be just a review of the concert, actually I am uncertain how could one review a concert at all. Recordings, sure, but live performances? Bah. Did a couple in the past probably, but really they’re not my cup of bile. Beware this is going to be a rant, a personal rant, and probably will have a couple of deviations from the main body of thought, you have been warned.

Here are the pre-reviews of the various bands playing at the fest, for those who understand some Italian or want to try luck with Google Translate.

• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/exthenia-retaliatory-measures-cannibal-accident/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/necrolepsy-galvanizer-amputory-cadaveric-incubator-solothus/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/depravity-festerday-necropsy-skepticism/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/lantern-lubricant-rippikoulu/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/cross-to-bear-malicious-death-axeslaughter/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/demilich-archgoat-convulse-purtenance/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/pestigore/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/witchcraft-gorephilia-maveth-cemetery-fog/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/ascended-decaying-krypts-stench-of-decay/
• https://www.nuclearabominations.com/abominazioni/finnish-death-metal-maniacs/

DEPARTURE

The flight to Tampere was leaving at 6.40 AM and – while wishing cancer to whoever in Ryanair decided to plan a flight so early – I had to take into account being at the airport two hours earlier, that totals 4.40 AM. Considering there is no train that goes straight to the town of the airport and that I would need to take a bus as well, plus some extra time for eventual problems and delays which ALWAYS turn up, I might as well go there the night before and just don’t sleep at all. Since I am a lazy fuck and prefer to take at least 3 or 4 hours of sleep before a flight I had the brilliant idea to book a room with Airbnb, considering last time I was lucky and the place was enchanting and the breakfast sumptuous. Things didn’t turn out completely clear from the beginning. Despite four different requests the girl in Airbnb just didn’t want to tell me the exact address of the place. When I arrived and parked in the street close to the place a guy came in to pick me up and take me to the apartment and it looked like it was him who actually managed the room, but somehow didn’t want to appear anywhere, nor he wanted to tell Airbnb the correct address. The flat was in a dirty, shady quarter and located in a monstrous old building that probably hosted like one hundred families at minimum wage. Looked like I figured the Bronx in the 80’s. When I got in, the girl which was probably lending her name for the Airbnb account was sitting on a couch and showed me the “breakfast”. Some cookies, coffe. That’s it. Considering I don’t drink coffee, the morning after would have been quite meager. The apartment itself reeked of cigarette smoke, probably old one clinging to the walls since nobody was smoking when I arrived.

Since it was still early, I went to a nice pub in the whereabouts (the owner suggested me a kebab, no thanks I prefer home made gourmet food) and had a real good hamburger. That was a place I saved on my Tripadvisor list because it was definitely good on the food level, even if at 13 euros for hamburger and beer it might be considered pricey.

I got back to the room just to assist the arrival of a family from southern Italy which was frying some fucking garlic at 11 PM. The smell added to the one of acrid stale smoke crept into my bedroom and I had to try to sleep with the pungent smell of garlic stuck in the nostrils. Two hours later someone started to scream in the building, shouting in some oriental language I could not recognize. It didn’t last long, however, just enough to break my sleep. I went to shit in the bathrom just to realize that the lightbulb was burned out and the toilet paper ended. The owner of the room suggested not to call a taxi in the morning and that the airport was very close, like 10 minutes. It took 40, with sweat drenching my sweatshirt and the awareness that I was late on my schedule. Ah, for those 36 euros, I managed to have breakfast at last: 2 glasses of fridge cold water as there was no juice nor yoghurt nor anything else to eat.

As soon as I arrived at the airport, tragedy struck. While kneeling to weigh in my bags on a scale, my pants ripped in half. From groin to ankle, one single huge rip. Trying not to panic, I ran to the toilet and took out a change which luckily I put in my luggage at the last minute. I have no clue what would have happened if I did not have that spare pair of pants. Azatoth was with me that day.

Clock ticking and scared to be late, I started to queue at the check in when I realized I did not need to stay there as I only had hand bags. I ran to the gate and made it at last, meeting some friends waiting there at the gate. From that point on luckily things went pretty much smoothly, but the start was really a concatenation of shitty, shitty situations.

Starving for the missing breakfast I had the clever idea to eat something on the plane: 8 euros for a gummy croissant, a tiny shot of orange juice (which was a soft drink and not a juice btw) and a bottle of water costing six euros per liter – I drank very good wines for that price. The worse thing in the picture however was that my shirt was WET as in completely SOAKED in sweat. Luckily I just bought a buff and protected by neck but the air conditioning was hammering on my upper back and I just crossed finger I was not stuck the day after.

Tea in Tampere

We arrived safely in Finland and paid six bucks for a ride to Tampere. Since we had some spare time I stopped by an enchanting little tea room and has some warm tea with Karjalan Piirakkaa. Took some pictures around like a Japanese tourist on LSD, then I took the bus which I paid in advance online months before at the honest price of 3.50 euros. When I was on the bus something really weird started to happen. Might be the sleep deprivation, or the rough, untamed aspect of the fields and hills but I started to enter in a unexplainable close contact with the land. The sheeps, the hay bales neatly wrapped in white plastic, the water ponds and lakes. Might be I was in a complex, chaotic mindset for months but I finally relaxed after so much time. For the first time in literally years I was really enjoying the moment. I tried to nail myself awake with energy drinks, but at the same time I was in a complete state of peace and relaxation. Not only I have been wishing to visit Finland all my life, not just for the bands of course, but I was there in one of the most undefined, unstable periods of my lifetime. And I could watch all those bands I only read about in fanzines when I was a kid. Things were going to be real cool.

I thanked myself once more for having only handbags with me as the sleeping place was very close to the station and the walk was a cake. I departed with the other guys telling them I was going to have some sleep, a shower and change my fucking clothes at last. The host was a half Slovenian, very young guy who had been travelling since he was a kid. He was a very cool person, but quite unaware on many levels. He completely forgot to say he had no hairdryer except when I was already stepping out of the shower with my hair drenched. With a towel wrapped around my sadly thinning but long hair I took a brief nap on what I recognized too late was the sleeping place: a couch in the middle of the living room. The couch was comfortable but there was no wardrobe nor a place to hang clothes so I had to spread them on the floor. The weird thing is that the living room was actually a place where the guy lived and worked in the afternoon so you had better “slept fast” (like Arnold Schwarzenegger says) or you’re going to be awaken by the host doing his routine. The overall stay was cool at a very cheap price after all, yet some situations were borderline awkward. The guy asked me if I finished the bottle of water on the first day – which I did since I always sleep with a bottle beside the bed – but the weird thing is that the bottle was almost empty, just like a glass or so. Considering there was no breakfast at all in the morning I assumed I could at least drink a glass per day. Whatever. I later did some shopping at the supermarket and bought some bottles which I left there. Meh.

Finland has this weird concept of happy hour: il lasts all night not just an hour before supper. You could drink at a local Mexican pub for 3 euros per beer which is cheap even for Italian standards. I met the other guys there and we had a couple of beers coupled with some shots of liquor, while admiring some local blonde haired fauna walking back and forth all around our table. Still shivering, jeezus. After a day of travel, it was a nice start.

DAY 1

A brutal sore throat welcomed me the next morning thanks to no doubt that fucking missing hairdryer. I planned to buy one the same day but then I realized there was a sauna a few hundred meters from the building where I slept, so with just 5 euros I could walk in, take a Finnish sauna and have a shower using the built in hairdryer as well. Wasn’t it for one of the biggest, most painful, bloody blister I have ever had in my life, walking through Pori would have been a great experience. I did it anyway, but throbbing pain under the foot is not the best of pals to hang with for a whole festival with no buses close. My throat was so swollen I could barely swallow so I went to the nearest aptekki (pharmacy store) asking (after an educate queue with a number to be served) for cortisone spray but they told me I had to ask permission to the doctor which was available to visit me for just 60 fucking euros. No thank you, it will go away with just some mints I bet. Luckily, it did. Armed with a new smartphone and the amazing mobile Internet technology I located a nearby Alko store to make some shopping of Finnish booze. Basically these are State owned places which are licensed to sell the “heavier” stuff, otherwise you only get to drink dishwasher reflux type beer in the supermarkets. The shopping was good as it produced two bottle of an ancient beer called sahti, a bottle of a weird liquor made of tar called Terva and a very sweet Lapp berry wine called tyrni wine or something (i believe tyrni is a berry). The most interesting part was shopping for alcoholic beverages with an old Finn drunkard with one of the deepest vocies I have heard, could have been a replacement in Type O Negative, even if I have the impression alcohol was somewhat responsible for the bass boost. The guy had a teardrop tattoo on his face and lots of jailhouse tats all around including hands and neck. He was so happy of shopping for booze with somebody else that when I left the shop he shook my hand. Ah, Finns.

Warm Up Event

The venue was an incredibly clean place for Italian standards where puke, punks, beer and cigarette and joint reek are the norm. The entrance was checked with a table that read a QR code on the ticket. As a last moment addition, there was also a place outside where you could buy decent beer from a producer called Mufloni (which is btw also an Italian word).

Not sure if there actually was the flea market where old bands could sell their old  merch. I went to the tent several times and all I could see was some tapes (which I bought), a couple of Cds (which I don’t buy anymore) and some vinyl (which I didn’t trust placing in my bags) as well as merchandise from the bands which unfortunately would not have fit me ever since 2002. Luckily both the great organizer and Matt from Dark Descent has circus-tent sized shirts and I scored two really cool FDDM and Dark Descent shirts to bring home. Thanks again both of you!

Despite having seen them earlier last year Ascended played the real shit. The venue was also perfect – low ceiling, no smoke, crisp powerful sound, as soon as I got inside I was hooked. I didn’t remember this band being this good. English-influenced harmonics on a backbone of Finnish brutality – top notch. Decaying I skipped after a song, too routine pummeling Death Metal in my opinion, without the proper obscurity that should be typical of every Finnish band. Can’t remember much about Stench of Decay either, they are one of those bands that sound unripe without sounding primitive, which is a no-no. Probably not that bad, but not the shade of what was about to come. Krypts showcased one of the most powerful, most intense sounds I can remember- they were the perfect incarnation of that dark, grave touched heaviness I wanted to hear. The combination of psychedelic lights and utterly powerful chords and gloomy, crushing doom created a sensation of out of time and space I only recently experienced when seeing Anatomia. It was an amazing show and probably one of the top five bands I have seen at the festival. The recordings could not explain how powerful this band is live, I am officially a fan.

I am not entirely certain this is going to be a definitive thing, but for the moment being, Nuclear Abominations is switching to Italian language in his own space. I might be back here if someone asks to have his records reviewed in English language but unless it is specified in the promo package every review for the moment is going to be made in my native tongue.

Here is a link for those interested ABOMINAZIONI

I am getting the hang of doing these Necrospectives (which is a feature I actually contemplated for a long time). This time I am up with a very long list of albums by a fundamental band from my first steps into the world of Death Metal and Grindcore. My views on the subject are quite atypical so I can imagine I’ll have several complaints about the ratings ah, ah. How funny to have a blog about records where you can write anything you wish.

pre-Deicide (Amon 1.0)

Amon, or Aamon, is a great and mightie marques, and commeth abroad in the likenes of a woolfe, having a serpents taile, <spetting out and breathing> [vomiting] flames of fier; when he putteth on the shape of a man, he sheweth out dogs teeth, and a great head like to a mightie <raven> [night hawk]; he is the strongest prince of all other, and understandeth of all things past and to come, he procureth favor, and reconcileth both freends and foes, and ruleth fourtie legions of divels.

– Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum (1577)

I will be honest here, I don’t remember having heard of Deicide before their self-titled full-length when the name exploded with all its bombastic tongue-in-cheek Satanic propaganda. I only managed to hear the stuff from these two demos a hanful of years later when Roadrunner released the “Amon” compilation (I also have a funny story to tell about going to the Vatican with a longsleeve from that record back in 1993, eh). These recordings however, are SO full of malevolent energy I can’t even properly describe their impact. They certainly have a more Slayerish flow and a somehow thinner sound, but at the same time the vocals are much more malicious. What is lacking in the sheer brutality that is/was the leitmotif of Deicide is replaced by sheer atmosphere, the almost serpentine gargling whispering words of blasphemy immersed in an environment of pops and crackling typical of the old analog media. There is a lot of hidden black energy in these recordings, which places them in my humble opinion on the same, maybe slightly better, position as the debut.

Vote: 9/10

 “Deicide”, 1990

All the previous Amon tracks have been re-recorded for this debut, with a completely different sound. The crepitating, slithering evilness of the earlier recordings have mutated here in a work maybe less evocative, but definitely of greater impact. The sound is still very dark, especially considered the year in which this album was recorded. At the time Deicide was one of the very few bands widely known beyond the small circle of people with a decent knowledge of underground music currents (that sounds like a million years ago), not just for the gimmicks of using decomposed meat and blood on stage and all the shit about Benton branding an inverted cross on his forehead or alleged suicide at 33, but also for their unique sound that included among the fastest double bass drum in the world. Certainly one could argue about that today, but it was all that people not listening to this music knew: I had some friends into “other scenes” asking for recordings of this album for years. I remember being quite perplexed about the comic book used on the album sleeve, where this monk is being turtured by demons, it just felt so out of place, but taken as a whole the layout was rather effective, front cover sigil and all (wished they stayed on this path anyway).

Deicide was definitely a sensation from day one: massive, fast, no-nonsense. The lyrics on this album are still not very definite, but effective for the aural butchery that is the record. I would say it’s an all time masterpiece, if it had not the unluck of preceding “Legion”.

Vote: 8,5/10

Legion, 1992

Deicide was a very big blast in the underground in my city as well as all in a sudden I was surrounded by a very dedicated core fandom. I can certainly relate to that: they were killer. It was also one of my first Death Metal gigs ever when they toured with Gorefest in 1992 (my first show was probably Carcass in Rome in 1990 which, strangely enough, also featured Atrocity) and the first time I was realizing that Death Metal was assuming a constant presence in my country as well. Concerts at last were not just anymore attended by drunkards and punks. Then one day I just stepped in the local metal shop and bought this vinyl record. I still vividly remember the horror of seeing the sleeve being chewed by my dog which at the time was a puppy when I was having dinner but placing this album on the record player for the first time was life changing and had me forget everythung – just the same emotion I had the first time I spinned “Reign In Blood”. I knew Deicide already, but this was something entirely different. This was HELL – accurately described in detail and carved in the bones of saints, a masterpiece built on the heads of decapitated holy men. Unholy fucking shit, this album is so razor sharp, obscure and devastating there is no reason why anybody should not own it. It is one of the 5 best Death Metal records of all time, period. Sooooo incredibly inspired. The lyrics are a mix of Satanism and occult lore, free of that shitty tongue in cheek humour of the following records. This record is absolute perfection: it manages to create an immensely powerful evocative picture of an infinite massacre, a land without god where inconocalsm has crushed every single spark of life. I have no words, really, to describe how immensely amazing this album is. It is EVIL incarnate, distilled ona  record. La Fin Absolue du Monde made music.

Vote: 10/10, absolute Masterpiece

Once Upon The Cross, 1995

Deicide in 1995

By the time this record was released, I already perceived some cracks in the freshness and energy of the whole Death Metal movement. Mostly all the big bands of the time had released either mediocre or outright ludicrous albums so my expectation for this new Deicide album were high. But with a grain of salt firmly in my grasp. I started to notice something out of place when I started seeing boys in my school buying Sepultura merchandise and I mean, typically average guys all in a sudden were asking me about Mayhem and Cannibal Corpse, my bullshit detector was very high at the time and this time it was itching terribly. Nothing could have prepared me with the complete delusion that was this album, however. Where the fuck were the dark blades of sound ripping through the flesh of my ears. Where was the eerie gurgling of blood dripping from Benton’s vocals? Why the fuck did they have a comic book Jesus on the cover? What were those ridicolous song names? What the fuck was wrong with the vocals here, and more that everything else, when does the album START? Hearing this shit was more or less like going through a torture of increasing disappointment. By the time I heard “When Satan Rules His World” which is a song you can basically dance at at the prom, I understood the band was completely lost. The line up was the same but the songs were just plain tarantellas with heavy distortion. No punch, no in-your-face brutality, just happy dance songs for the brainless college monkeys like the subhumans in my school. When these “regular guys” came to me asking if I heard this fantastic album, hoping they could enter my circle of friendship I understood Death Metal lost another big piece on the way.

Vote: 3/10 (could be 5/10 if it was not released after “Legion”)

Serpents Of The Light, 1997

By the time this album was released I was pretty much disillusioned and definitely done with Deicide, the sound of the tammuriata at the shore of the gulf of Naples still haunting my sleep.  Despite my abysmal expectations, I nevertheless found this album more than decent. The deicide-style song structures are on this album completely turned upside-down. The sound is still powerful but there is an added share of speed: instead of going back to their old sound they preferred to walk a much more typical path but the overall product was OK in my book. Sure the solos are not product of the schizoid rapture of their first two albums, and the consolidated American “chliché” sound was way more definite here but, despite not being as original as before, I dug this album pretty much. It’s fast, it has a couple of very powerful choruses and, while it has still ridicolous lyrics  somehow I don’t find them as cheesy as the one before. The cover art is so ugly it challenges Morbid Angel of this period, really what the fuck was going on in their mind when they designed it is beyond me.

Vote: 7/10

Insineratehymn, 2000

Things changed once again here, taking a simplified, sometimes almost minimalist take. My problem with this album is that you can’t be pushy if you rely on sound compression to create powerful music. If you try to play this stuff on shitty gear you get basically nothing in your hand. Mixing in slow, measured riffs technically might have added some extra punch to the album, especially after the super fast “Serpents” before, but I don’t know, Deicide’s major leverage is certainly not in the quality of the single riff. They’re no Incantation nor Asphyx, and when you chop down a monolithic in your face sound like theirs in such a way the result is definitely not particularly exciting, and certainly not inspired. I haven’t even bought this album, Deicide being more or less a closed chapter for me, especially after the following one.

The nicer thing about this album is probably the cover art, for once a little classy, following the dictations of this more austere approach.

Vote: 6,5/10

In Torment In Hell, 2001

Derivative and uninspired are certainly the first words that come up when looking for adjectives for this album, which follows the lines of the preceding one but trying nonsensically to reheat some of the older shit. This idea isn’t particularly hidden either, considering the cover art is a mix of all the previous album covers. Unluckily not always mixing good ingredients you get the sum of all parts. Music, like cuisine, is a matter of good taste, balance, daring end enthusiasm, all four elements completely missing here. Last time I heard this album was the week it was released, and I am not giving it a new listen to refresh my memory on some lossless sound clips I deservedly downloaded illegally. Fuck it, you don’t really want me to actually PAY for this stuff? My memories were pretty much accurate however, no real juice to be squeezed from this dead body. The only thing I appreciated is the solos are quite decent as are some of the riffs, but arranged in this way you don’t really get much. I am not sure I remember correctly, but I read somewhere that the band itself pretty much sneered at this album too, since it was just a rushed up (1 mere year is actually little for songwriting unless you’re Motorhead) attempt at wrestling out of Roadrunner for which they had a contract to fulfill. In any case, let’s just skip this album, it’s not worth much.

Vote: 5/10

Scars Of The Crucifix, 2004

I reviewed this album before with a little added enthusiasm 10 years ago now (ah, being young ah ah). In any case I still believe this album was a good come back, especially after the failure of the amazingly generic last one. This is an album that I got as a promo from Earache back then, so I managed to listen to it on a normal medium, ah. It’s a rather good comeback in my opinion, finally balanced and spot on. Hoffman/1 has learned to write good solos but has the taste to cut them short and leave his brother Hoffman/2 lead the way the classic Deicide way; pummeling, chugging, crushing without remorse. All the arrangements on this album sounds just very right in my book, the vocals are in perfect shape and there is a good load of good old screams adding a layer of malignancy not present since maybe the Amon days (“Legion” is an album that stands on its own). The cover art is also finally something work taking some minutes having a look at. All in all, I deemed this album quite fine, probably the best of their second life.

Vote: 8/10

The Stench Of Redemption, 2006

In 2006 Earache sent me the promo for this one as well which I listened to almost entirely on my car stereo complete with those unpleasant anti-piracy interruptions and obviously missing lyrics and complete packaging. I think that “The Stench Of Redemption” is potentially a very good album too for Deicide 2.0, the only thing I find completely out of place are these over the top solos, completely out of place in this mix of crushing brutality, possibly just there for the ego of Santolla. Who cares for this shit is beyond me, I never saw any overlapping between power metal and Death Metal. Yet Deicide’s new guitarists succeeded in evolving the sound of the band that lead us to a new territory and it somehow works out quite decently. I really do like the way the rhythm guitar throws in the mix an incredibly varied plethora of experiences, still managing to fill every second with layers over layers of sound and, thanks to a monstrous drumwork, leaves no time for breath. Mature in an unpredictable way, I found this album ripe and juicy, with just too much sugar on the lead solos.

Vote: 8/10

Til Death Do Us Part, 2008

I caught up with the latest 3 Deicide album just recently after a long pause of complete disconnection from their works (and well, many other bands as well), preferring more obscure, less promoted releases. What I think of this album is that this is possibly a second try at Insineratehymn (meaning a more thoughtful, slower, more evocative version of Deicide) that this time fell short for the opposite reasons. While the previous two albums were complex in a ceremonious but still orchestrally balanced way, I can’t really find any convincing connective tissue between the songs on this album. Shaking off my eyes the horrendous embossed effect on the logo (which might be forgiven to the band members, but not to the graphical dept of Earache) is difficult, but swallowing the whole plate has been even harder. It’s like a French dish, apparently good but relying most of its taste to butter and fat. You can’t really make a good album throwing all the shit that your creative skill brings up to your mind, some songs really sounds like they’ve been sewed together with thick twine. All in all however, I can’t say it’s totally shit either, just some album that can’t probably pass the test of time.

Vote: 6/10

To Hell With God, 2011

Could be the somewhat insipid, bland sound but this albums is lacking completely one of the old trademark Deicide aspects: darkness. Even when blasting full force the band always managed to sit in the gloom of Satan’s ever reaching hand. Not here, at least from the way I am perceiving this shit. Even he screams that once added a level of enraptured folly don’t really make it, and some riffs (hear the song “Conviction”) are just plain boring old stuff. After such a a marathon, going through the whole band discography, I might be a little exhausted but this stuff just doesn’t click. The formula is more or less the same of the one before, but this album sounds incredibly prosaic and useless, not just unrefined. The cover (oh my, the embossing) is good stuff, not so the music within.

Vote: 5/10

In The Minds Of Evil, 2013

All the previous intricacies have been unraveled on this album. Deicide this time chose to play fair showing everything that is going on in their songwriting all across this album, getting rid of choruses and screams among many other refinements. The main problem is that under the hood there seems to be very little left. This album sounds totally routine to me, sometimes the levels of dullness and horrible chugging of “Once Upon The Cross”. I never heard Deicide to utterly flavorless. Not a bad album if it was a teenager demo. For a Deicide album however, the curtains seem to have been pulled close once again. I gave them for dead more than once however, so who know what are they going to show us next time.

Vote: 5/10

That is all. It’s been a nice trip, if completely exhausting. I perfectly know many of you are going to be offended by these reviews, but go ahead and make your won blog, ah ah! In any case I enjoyed writing this. If you have a band that you’d like to get covered in a similar manner let me know. I basically NEVER review stuff that I don’t have in physical format, but I am prone to do it for these biographies for very shitty albums.

I am going to see the band live in a few days  I have seen this band live a few days ago so I thought I’d give a spin to these old records once more before the show and share a little bit of thoughts on this great stuff.

The 7″ on Corpsegrinder and the MBR Cd

Macabre End “Consumed By Darkness” demotape/7″

The band started out as a group with a swedish name – which I THINK roughly translates to “The bottom of the bottle” – which I have never had the chance to hear. In any case that’s not of any relevance as this demo is where the good shit started to grind. Macabre End’s (and God Macabre too) sound could be described as a thick blend of Carnage chunky riffs, Paradise Lost harmonies and some Autopsy sickness here and there. Being Autopsy my all time fave band, with Carnage in the top five right behind, I think it’s superfluous to say I pretty much worship this kind of stuff. To simply define them as melodic Death Metal would be blasphemous since the real core of these songs is brutal, downtuned and straightforward, with a rather powerful vocalist on top of it all. Where the (early!) PL influences I mentioned before could be heard is not within the single riff but mostly in bridges and well distinct sections so that no overall brutality is compromised and at the the same time they add variety to maintain freshness and substance, The demo tape DOES have a different sound actually but for once the new mix on th 7″ does not compromise the face-forward brutality of the Swedish sound and I would dare to say for once that some keyboards, when properly placed, do nothing to diminish it either. The songs are the same though and Corpsegrinder in my opinion used to delived yet another good bullet here for its short life span.

God Macabre “The Winterlong…”

The band changed name here for a MLp on that weird label Mangled Beyond Recognition which also gave us orgasms with releases like Crematory, Insanity and the vinyl repress of Grave’s awesome “Anatomia Corporis Humani”. The sound didn’t flinch at all from the previous recordings as we still have the truculent, tenebrous, Carnage core (I can’t really play a shit but I would bet at least two of these riffs are also present on “Infestation Of Evil”) with slow, grinding and malignant passages typical of Autopsy and those earlier British attempts at a more melodic (but not mellow) form of gothic-Death. At 30-score minutes, it is considered a Mini Lp even if in the post-Reign In Blood era I guess we could have stretched it a bit and define it a borderline full-length. One of the song (“Spawn Of Flesh” which from what I read has supposedly a “vegan” message) has been brought here from the Macabre End days. I don’t have the Relapse version but from what I read they included the Macabre End demo in that new edition. The guy in Nuclear Winter told me years ago he was considering releasing this album on vinyl. How it ended up being pressed by a different label instead is a story I have no information about. The cool news is Relapse is pressing its own vinyl version this year with a limited edition colored vinyl only for their mailorder so if you missed it back then this is the right time to act. The diehard version comes with a cool set of action figures as well. Just kidding, eh (that is Grave).

“Eve Of Souls Forsaken” Live

We are living in hard times, where you have to be quick or very rich to get all the cool shit that gets released (or re-released). This is a limited edition live from 1991 which saw the light a couple of years ago and gets sold nowadays for over 100 bucks. Alternatively you could be a dick like me, and don’t give a fuck about live albums, ah ah! I admit it would be nice to have anyway. I have never heard it so I can’t give you much more detail on this release.

Notes

Suppuration

Guitarist Ola used to write a fanzine called Suppuration, some nice guy scanned it and created a gallery on VKontakte, download it here if you want to have a look.

2013 Concert in Italy

Like I said before I was lucky enough to attend to their show in Brescia (which I have been told was their first show ever out of Sverige)  during which they really managed to crush everything. The sound was massive and the vocalist still has the same deep, powerful vocals. Have a look yourself at the show, I took these videos with my phone in a rather unfortunate position, so please forgive me for the sound quality.

VIDEOS

GALLERY

Circolo Colony, Italy 04/19/2014