Enthroned - Regie Sathanas

ENTHRONED - Regie Sathanas (BLACKEND Records - CD 1998)

Fuck, I cannot believe it has already been 15 years since I have actually purchased my copy of “Regie Sathanas”! Time flies like crazy and it really makes me feel a bit old hehe. But there are always those great memories left, when I was 18 and have been a huge fan of Enthroned at that time. I really, really worshipped their first two albums (“Prophecies of Pagan Fire” and “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan”, if you don’t them) and have been listening them a lot (A LOT!!). Ha, nowadays both albums don’t really make such a big impression on me anymore, but that may be just because I know every sound on them too well and they seem slightly boring nowadays. But I still consider early Enthroned as one of the greatest black metal bands. But back to “Regie Sathanas”… It was very special release and I just had to buy my own copy, as soon as it has been available at the Polish distro (Mystic Productions’). This MCD obviously memorizes Cernunnos, the drummer of Enthroned, who committed suicide in 1997. He recorded his parts for the second LP and hasn’t even lived long enough to see it being released. Well, since I consider suicide as the stupidity more than bravery (pha!), I am not gonna cry for Cernunnos, but surely I must say that “Regie Sathanas” is actually my favourite release in the discography of Enthroned. It is just fantastic half an hour of classic Enthroned and the finest material the band has recorded.

As the booklet for “Regie Sathanas” says, some stuff from this MCD dates as back as to 1988, when Cernunnos and Sabathan were shredding the guts with their previous band Morbid Death (ha, I love Sabathan’s nickname on the first Morbid Death demo – “Guy-Guy”, luckily not “Gay-Gay” hehe!!!!). Song titled “Satan Never Sleeps” is the one, which was written back then and it even appeared on Morbid Death’s second demo “Diabolic Force”. I’ve never heard this demo, but when listening to the new version of this track you can obviously hear that this is something way more archaic and stylistically different to what Enthroned was ever doing. But I actually really, really like this track a lot. That opening theme is just awesome and later, when it turns into archaic thrashing death metal, but played with the black metal sound and vocals, it just blows my head off. It is actually worth to mention that the drums on “Regie Sathanas” were played by new drummer of the band, Namroth Blackthorn, who also have been a member of Morbid Death and even recorded the drums for the mentioned “Diabolic Force” demo (Dan Vandenplas, a’ka Cernunnos was a guitarist / vocalist in this band!). Ha, the history comes full circle here!

Along with this old song, Enthroned recorded here two new songs from 1997, which were composed with the new line up, after “Towards the Skullthrone of Satan” was released and again I must say that I like both songs a lot. “My Dark Glorious Thoughts” is especially killer, very fast, relentless and violent piece of black metal, but obviously it is not bereft of the melody, which has always been present in Enthroned’s music (actually, just listen to that awesome, long harmonious guitar solo… what a great tune!). Another new track, “Walpurgis Night”, may have slightly odd beginning, but it’s a classic song for this band, with catchy and memorable riffing and overall a great, dark and satanic atmosphere. Moving forward though, the cover of Sodom’s “Conqueror” sounds just absolutely fuckin KILLER, it has been played very fast and really shreds to pieces, I may even like this version more than the original song from Sodom he! I know it may sound blasphemous, but just listen to this version on “Regie Sathanas” and tell me if it is not a fuckin shredder. And finally the whole MCD is finished with a new version of “Deny the Holy Book of Lies”, my favourite song from “Prophecies of Pagan Fire” LP. And again it just sounds extremely great, it has been played way faster than on the album or “Promo 1994”, where it also appeared. And man, what an excellent piece of black metal it is, what a memorable song and amazing, obscure atmosphere. This is why I like Enthrone music so much… with those excellent riffs, raspy vocals of Sabathan and freezing cold, satanic atmosphere. Just fuckin scream “Ave Satan… ave… ave!!!!” with Sabathan and feel the essence of Enthroned! And in the end it has been played so fast that it is just a fuckin shock!

Yeah, can you feel my enthusiasm towards “Regie Sathanas”? Really, I think this MCD is just excellent and by far it is the best of all Enthroned releases, in my opinion. It is extremely powerful and contains just excellent songs, all closed in 30 minutes, what is not bad for the MCD. I strongly recommend it to you all. If you call yourself a black metal maniac, you just must have this release. For me it also has sort of sentimental value, being one of my favourite releases and bands from the mid to lat 90’s, so… “Regie Sathanas”!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope they’ll release it on vinyl one day though, as I have all other Enthroned albums on vinyl, only this one of CD hehe!

Standout tracks: “By Dark Glorious Thoughts”, “Deny the Holy Book of Lies”, “Conqueror”

Final rate: 95/100

 

 

Hellspawn - The Great Red Dragon

HELLSPAWN - The Great Red Dragon (WM PSYCHO - CD 2012)

This is the second full length album from Polish death masters Hellspawn and third recording of theirs, which I had a pleasure to listen to and I must admit it is a real pleasure to be able to observe how the music of this band has been developing and maturing through all these years, since the release of their “Demo 2005”. And the word “maturity” is a key here, I think, as really since the “Child of Hell” CD Hellspawn have grown up and actually managed to fix everything what was wrong with their previous album, so now they appear to be a damn vicious and lethal death metal force. Obviously they still sound very Polish, but that is not an objection, but rather a proof that the scene in this country is like a never ending mine, where one can find really many, many great bands.

When comparing “The Great Red Dragon” to “Child of Hell” I can only point out the positive aspects of Hellspawn’s development and really this new album is much better than the debut. First of all, the music itself has been bettered and as I already pointed it out, it matured. It still is pretty intense, fast and brutal death metal, yeah, but the riffs are just better, there are also more interesting and killer, as well as memorable ideas and motifs, plus I can honestly say that the guitar leads, which are on “The Great Red Dragon” are just excellent. But yeah, the riffs are really great, the music is often very tight and extreme, but still quite memorable, which is a good aspect of “The Great Red Dragon”, as there’s nothing worse if death metal becomes just a mindless brutality, which leads you nowhere… Plus it’s not just a chase with the light all the time through the album… Sure, the fast playing is still dominating the most part of Hellspawn’s music, but luckily this time the band managed to vary their songs, using the killer, slow parts more often and this diversity made a very good effect. “The Great Red Dragon” is really interesting, it is very intense and yet, it is has enough space to really catch the attention and that is excellent thing. More so, I must point out that finally Hellspawn has achieved a good production; the sound on “The Great Red Dragon” is so great. I mean the lack of really killer and energetic sound was probably the main failure on “Child of Hell”; meanwhile “The Great Red Dragon” sounds crispy, but brutal and still very powerful. I really like the guitar tone, as well as the way the vocals have been mixed and performed. Actually I think I like everything about this album and since I started to listen to it last week, I still enjoy the music a lot…

And an extra word should be said about the artwork for the album and the lyrics. I like the fact that Hellspawn putted Polish translations of their texts and I must say that the Polish version of the lyrics from “The Great Red Dragon” are really, really good, maybe even better than the English ones; but of course the band growls the English words only and that is actually good, as I’m not a big fan of Polish lyrics in death metal generally. So, if I can say anything for the end then it would be just a word of praise and a total recommendation of this album for everyone, who’s into this style of music.

Standout tracks: “Word Becomes Flesh”, “Revelation of the Great Red Dragon”

Final rate: 83/100

 

Hellspawn - Child of Hell

HELLSPAWN - Child of Hell (Exploratory Drilling - CD 2010)

It’s interesting that this album – from Polish Hellspawn, “Child of Hell” – recorded in 2008 and released in 2010 (by a small Polish / Irish label Exploratory Drilling) got such a bad promotion that I haven’t actually heard about it until only recently, when Hellspawn released their second full length “The Great Red Dragon”. To promote this new record the band gave quite few interviews and only then I’ve found out that they also released something like “Child of Hell” a couple of years earlier. But no wonder really that this album went by so unnoticed. Not only the label haven’t done absolutely anything to promote it, but also the CD is limited to 200 copies only, so really, there are not so many copies circulating around the underground. But I decided to contact the band and ask them whether they still have some copies left to sell and I was surprised when they told that they surely do… and more so, the price was equal to three beers hehe. So, I decided not to buy any beers, but spend this “fortune” on “Child of Hell”. Was it a good choice? Sure, it was. The album is quite good, but I also think it will become a nice rare item soon. So, I have a copy number 156 (its handnumbered, by the way) and I must that some of you may really like the way this CD was released. Actually more and more often I see so untypical ways of releasing CDs; not in the jewel case or digipacks, but for example in bigger cardboard cases or in the 7”EP size cover; labels like Old Temple or Proselytism do that and I always liked it… “Child of Hell” comes in a size similar to A5, in the cardboard cover. The layout may not be the most awesome of all I’ve ever seen, but surely it looks decent.

The album itself contains nine songs, all closed within 25 minutes, so the album is pretty short, but I think it’s perfect length for such intense and uncompromising dose of death metal; it would bore you to death if it was 40 or more minutes long. It’s mainly because all songs, which Hellspawn recorded here, are so damn similar to each other… The riffing and rhythms, especially those fast parts, they always sound very alike, so with 25 minutes of music it won’t make you sleep so much (I hope hehe). As I already wrote, this death metal is painfully intense and brutal (but not in the ultra extreme, American or Spanish brutal way… luckily, there are no dogs barking and pigs squealing hehe). Yeah, the fast tempos are in much advance here and maybe it’s a shame that the band doesn’t slow down more often, so their music would be even heavier and more massive, but if you like fast death metal, but played by rather simple riffing, something similar to the recent Deicide albums maybe, as well as Diabolic and Krisiun, then “Child of Hell” will be your thing. The material is not the most innovative, it also isn’t the most exciting and thrilling piece of death metal… it actually is pretty average, but somehow I enjoyed listening to it. There’s no shame for the band and for the underground standards I think they did a good job. Pity only that there’s no spark or something totally killer, what would put the world ablaze… maybe if the production was more energetic and aggressive then this material would sound better? Fuck that. “Child of Hell” is as it is and I can recommend it to all the underground collectors and death metal maniacs, who like more uncompromising forms of this music, but don’t expect another “Apocalyptic Revelation” from it.

Standout tracks: none of them really blew my mind exceptionally, but surely “Thou” and “The Contmaster” are the best here

Final rate: 70/100

Hellspawn / Hateful / Impureza - Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence

HELLSPAWN / HATEFUL / IMPUREZA - Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence (NIHILISTIC HOLOCAUST - Split CDr 2006)

Back in the early to mid 00’s I used to get quite many releases from a French label called Nihilistic Holocaust. I must say that I’ve enjoyed most of them and really liked that idea, which Gabriel – the guy behind this small label – had and which was to run a totally non-profit label, which was just helping to some cool underground bands to spread their music around the world. So, Nihillistic Holocaust was taking some demos and usually released in form of split tapes, CDs or CDRs, always keeping the DIY spirit and just sent them anywhere, i.e. to every fanzine possible. I think that one of my favourite releases from NH is this 3way split CDR, titled “Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence” (of which NH supposedly send about 3000 copies, which is not bad at all!). Released in 2006 it featured three really cool underground death metal bands and I think I can say that this release was a real feast for the maniacs of the underground death metal. So, what we have here are: Hellspawn from Poland (featuring their “Demo 2005”), Hateful from Italy (with their “Promo 2005”) and Impureza from France (two demos, from 2005 and 2006). Three bands, each performing slightly different kind of death metal, but each really good at what they’ve been doing. Since this split release is I think quite unknown, I think it’s cool opportunity to introduce it to you. What do you think?

As I already mentioned “Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence” presents three different death metal bands and I must say that I have quite a problem to point out one, which I like most. And that’s because each had something great to offer and each was really good at what they’ve been doing. I guess, from purely patriotic reasons, I would mention Polish Hellspawn as the most lethal band of the three. They play really aggressive and brutal, fast death metal, one which takes equally as much from Vader as it does from some US bands like the recent Deicide, Malevolent Creation or Morbid Angel… and yeah, this demo from 2005 was maybe not exceptionally fantastic, but surely a solid piece of music. Their death metal was dense, brutal, fast and relentless, quite simple, speaking of the technical aspects, as luckily the band wasn’t showing off with their technical skills too much, but rather concentrated on making the music as straight forward and relentless as it is possible. And yeah, I like it. Maybe the vocals could have been better, sometimes I feel like the guy had not much idea what to do with his deep growls, but anyway, the music is good. Definitely Hellspawn is the most uncompromising band from “Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence”. Meanwhile Hateful from Italy brings their three tracks from “Promo 2005”. This was actually the only demo recording, which this band has ever done, I think, as few years later, in 2010, they’ve released a full length album “Coils of a Consumed Paradise”. I’ve never heard this CD, but its front cover looks familiar, so I’m sure I’ve read about it somewhere. Anyway, as for the “Promo 2005”, I must say that Hateful played some absolutely great songs here. Their death metal is again very fast and brutal, maybe slightly chaotic here and there, but I like it a lot, maybe even more than Hellspawn. It reminds a bit of Sinister, old God Dethroned or Sacred Sin, so you should know what to expect – pure death FUCKIN metal.

From all three bands, which you’ll find on “Tworzenia, Resurrezione, Demence”, French Impureza seems to be the most original band, although I cannot say that I like their music as much as Hateful’s for instance. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good, but maybe sometimes a bit too weird, for my personal taste. They play their death metal in more technical way, with many extras thrown within their song structures and with many quite unusual ideas. I guess I should mention that Impureza uses acoustic guitars here and there and what’s more, being very influenced by Spanish culture – they even have Spanish lyrics! – they play some oriental scales and flamenco acoustics here and there, like in that awesome song called “La luz de la la luna negra”, which surely is the best track of this band on this CD. It does sounds a bit weird sometimes and surely it takes few listens, before you’ll understand what the hell is this band about, but I think, speaking of originality, Impureza surely did a good job on both their demos (they used two demos here: “Ruina de la penitencia” from 2006 and “Y Correra Tu Sangre” from 2005 as a bonus). Sometimes they sound like Nile, other time like Immolation (similar kind of repetitive, fuckin heavy riffs), Mithras and Gorguts… all in all, with such songs like the one, which I mentioned above or “El predicator” Impureza proved to be classy band. The only thing is, if you’ll like those flamenco guitars, as surely it is not something for everybody… All in all, it’s worth checking this band out, even if it’s pure curiosity.

Final rate: 75/100