Fatum Elisum Interview

France's Fatum Elisum put out an album earlier this year by the title of  Homo Nihilis that inks the band indelibly into the ranks of France's burgeoning Doom / Death clan. Earlier I had the chance to talk to bassist Alexandre about Fatum Elisum and their peers across the Atlantic.

 
CT: For those who have never listened to Fatum Elisum, how would you describe the music you've thus far created?

Alexandre: Fatum Elisum plays doom death metal, without keyboards or female vocals, these are important points to notice. I think we sound like old English doom death metal bands like Cathedral (In Memoriam and Forest of Equilibrium era), old Paradise Lost, old My Dying Bride and old Anathema, with other influences. So you could expect long songs with heaviness, gloom and maybe some kind of tragedy on our music.

CT: Can you relate to us the origin myths of Fatum Elisum? How did the group form and since, how have the members coalesced? 

Alexandre: Christophe (guitar) and I met in March 2002 in a metal shop in Rouen called Hellion Records, and we spoke about doom metal. After that we thought about forming a doom metal band with Sator, our former “drummer”. After many tries, we had a more serious project during summer 2006, with Sator, Céline our former keyboard player, Jean Cédric on guitar and with Ende on vocals. But we did not agree about the musical direction and this project stopped quickly. So in March 2007, Christophe, Céline Sator and I asked to Hugo to join us. Hugo used to play with Sator, and was at that time playing guitar with Last Offender (heavy thrash metal). We rehearsed during spring, and in July 2007 Ende joined us as the singer. That was for the real beginning. In October 2008, when we split up with Sator, we had at that time a gig scheduled and we could not cancel it. So we asked to my brother Christophe to help us for this gig, and as he really enjoyed it, he became our drummer. I think this gave us a real start as playing with him was what the band really needed.

CT: Does each member bring a specific aspect to the music such as, is one member particularly excellent at writing convincing melodies, or lyrics?

Alexandre: Since the writing of the song Dancer of Spirals on our first album, we have the same method for writing songs. Hugo and I work together on the songs structure and showing to each other our riffs. Then Hugo makes all the melodies and harmonies, and after that we rehearsed the song altogether. Ende writes all the lyrics.

CT: On your facebook page, you mention that you made a specific decision to not include keyboards in the band after originally starting with a keyboardist. Why did you specifically choose to leave keyboards out of the band? Many bands in the doom death style utilize keyboards prominently and do not suffer from the inclusion. Morgion comes to mind.
 

Alexandre: Céline was at that time Sator’s girlfriend, so in a way, that’s why she was in the band. After many rehearsals, Hugo and I felt disappointed by the keyboard, which avoided Hugo to express him with lead guitars. In the beginning of June 2007, we did two rehearsals without Céline, and after listening to the recordings of these rehearsals, we found out that it was far away better. Céline is a good keyboard player, but this instrument did not fit to our music, as we wanted to do something very dark and crushing. And the melodies from a guitar, for me, are clearly nobler than coming from keyboards with synthetic sounds. More over, in my opinion, it is quite difficult to be very original when adding keyboards to doom death metal, as everything has been said by many bands, notably by My Dying Bride and Saturnus. Even I like bands like Skepticism, Profetus, Saturnus and My Dying Bride, I think this instrument has no place and will never have its place in Fatum Elisum music.

CT: Where do your influences lie, musically, lyrically and conceptually?

Alexandre: As said before, our main influences come from lots of bands, like Cathedral, My Dying Bride, Anathema, Paradise Lost, Celtic Frost, Mourning Beloveth, Evoken, Mournful Congregation, Black Sabbath, to name a few, but we listen to many kind of metal, notably Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal, and Epic Metal. We also do have personal influences, Christophe our guitar player, Hugo and Ende, listen to a lot of classical music, and Christophe also listens to a lot of world music, and for example, I enjoy artists like Neil Young, Sixteen Horsepower, Wovenhand and Joy Division.

Lyrically, Ende reads a lot of thing, so you could find his influences on his lyrics; this is something important in the band, as we often speak about the books we read in the band. Ende really enjoys author like Nietzsche, Cioran, Albert Camus, Antonin Artaud and William Blake. Conceptually, the word Fatum means Destiny in Latin, but in the way of its fatality, as Victor Hugo described it in some of his books. So, in my opinion, there is something about this fatality in our lyrics and in the emotions brought by our music.



CT: Tell me about the recording for your most recent release, Homo Nihilis. How did this recording differ from the first self titled release?

Alexandre: Well, there are no big differences from the first record, as we worked once again with Julien Bous. I think the big differences were on the drums as my brother is a good drummer and did a very good recording session for this album, so there are real drums on this record. But, we all progressed as a band, so the recording sessions were better for us. We recorded the drums, the guitars and the bass guitar in Postghost Recording Studio in December 2010. The vocals were all recorded in the church Saint Romain of Cailly, in February 2011, with Julien Bous. That was once again an amazing experience, but very extreme as it was very cold in this church, but the result is better than on the first record, as we had more time to record. We were happy to work once again with Julien, he knows us well and also knows what fitted for us, and he is a very good sound engineer. He did a great work for the mixing process which was done from March to May, and we obtained what we really wanted for this album.

Thankfully to Stu, our marvellous boss from Aesthetic Death, our album was mastered by Greg Chandler (Esoteric), who also did a great job for us. So we are really happy with these recording sessions and with the final result.  

CT: How has the reaction been to the record so far from what you can tell?

Alexandre: At this date, there is only one review about Homo Nihilis. I know that Stu is very pleased with our album. The only reactions about our record came from friends, they were good but it is hard to take a distance from that. Romain from Postghost Recordings told me that this one is good, and far better than the first one.

CT: In a recent review of your new album, Homo Nihilis, Dominik Sonders of Doom-metal.com compared Fatum Elisum with another local band, Ataraxie, practically pitting the two bands against one another (1). You've played shows with Ataraxie, but do you know Ataraxie personally? Have they been an influence on you?
 

Alexandre: I’m fed up with the endless comparisons to Ataraxie, as we do not sound like them, they are more extreme than us, and we are more influenced by the Peacevile Three than them. In fact, it seems that as we are from the same town, we are and maybe will always be only a copy cat of Ataraxie for many reviewers. That makes us laugh in the band, and Fred from Ataraxie was amazed about theses comparisons. Anyway, there is no competition at all between us, as we are friends. My brother and I are working on a new project with Fred and Sylvain from Ataraxie, Hugo and I have a gig organisation with Fred, and Jonathan is a good friend of mine. They’ve been an influence on us, not musically but in the way they managed their career, notably for their integrity. In fact they told us good advice when we begun, and let us play our first show with them and with Indesinence in November 2007. More over, I discovered doom metal during the nineties, so before Ataraxie was born.

 
CT: Do you feel that often times critics fail to look at each band singularly, instead perceiving each band as being in conflict with others? It seems that Dominik was hoping you would be a different band.

Alexandre:  I am also a reviewer; I often compared bands to other bands, but not in the way of making or creating some conflicts, but in order to have some main references for the readers. That’s the problem with a review, sometimes you loose something while doing comparisons or making some competition like “this one is slower than the other one”, or “this one is darker than this one”. It’s good to have reviews for a band, as it is a good way of promotion, but the best way to discover a band, in my opinion, will always be to listen to them on a disc or during a gig.

When we created the band, we did not want to be a revolutionary band, but only to play the music we wanted to do and to hear. There is some kind of worshipping of the elder bands in Fatum Elisum, and we pay our tribute to them, notably while doing cover songs, but you could also find it on many way on Homo Nihilis. I do not know what Dominik was hoping, he is free to think and write what he wants to, and this is not a problem for me.  

CT: Outside of Fatum Elisum, what do you occupy your time with? Do you work? Have kids? Hold candlelight rituals to the Elder Gods?
 

Alexandre: I have a daily job; I’m an educational advisor in a high school. I spend a lot of time rehearsing as I play in many bands, notably Absynth (black metal), the new project mentioned above and Forsaken Peddlers, an Epic Doom Metal project with Hugo and Christophe from Fatum Elisum and Florian from Absynth. I listen to a lot of music daily and read books. I’m an atheist, so there is no god worshipping.

CT: How does the message of Doom Metal, relate to reality? Does it?

Alexandre: Sometimes I think I was born too late, and everything I do, I do it very slowly. More seriously, I do not think there is one message, as they are some many bands and styles. I really enjoy the integrity of doom metal, and the loyalty of its fans. It’s always good to meet people during festivals whose listen to or play the same music as you. Anyway, sometimes, when I am in a bad mood, there are only few bands that I could listen to, like Warning, Abandon or Mournful Congregation, as their music reflect well what I feel.  

CT: What bands would you recommend for those who enjoy your music? What local bands would you promote to readers of this article that you feel deserve the attention of the underground loyalists?

Alexandre: Sorry if I’m not original, but I would recommend old Paradise Lost, old My Dying Bride, old Cathedral and old Anathema for those who enjoy our music; and bands like Imindain, Loss, Asunder Ophis, Mournful Congregation, Mourning Beloveth, Process of Guilt, to name a few, but all are different and very good. Did I mention to Ataraxie? 

Apart the well known Ataraxie, we are lucky to have a good scene in Rouen, with many good bands, so here is a brief presentation of them:

Prön Flåvurdik, a fantastic experimental drone doom band, with very good musicians. You should check their latest record, Opus 3, which was re-released by Paradigm Records this year. Their forth album is actually on the mixing process, and will be surely a huge album; I saw the band playing the new materials many times this year.  

http://www.myspace.com/pronflavurdik

Mhönos, a drone doom ritual band with unknown musicians from Rouen, their first album will be released on November on Le Crépuscule du Soir.

http://mhonos.free.fr/

Telümehtär, a black metal band, with, once again, very good musicians from different bands from Rouen.

http://www.myspace.com/satanislistening

Caruos, true pagan metal, with Nekurat from Hyadningar, Tommy from Wolfinside and Siegfried from Keen, they’ve just released:

http://caruos.free.fr/

Yuck, a unique band of grunge black metal, the perfect meeting between Seattle and Bergen. Their second album, This One Is Good, has just been released on Postghost Recording:

http://www.yuck.fr/

BadSwamp, a heavy rock band, with an excellent front woman:

http://www.myspace.com/badswamp

Hyadningar, epic and insane black metal, even the band split up last year, I recommend this band, and I recommend to you to check Void Paradigm, the new project of Marquis and Nehluj:

http://www.myspace.com/hyadningar

Last but not least, even it is not metal, I recommend to those who enjoy folk music The Middle Tide:

http://soundcloud.com/themiddletide  

CT: What are Fatum Elisum's future plans? Are there new tracks in the works already? Tours? Gigs? Any plans to play shows in North America or abroad?

Alexandre: The future plans are to play the more gigs we can to promote Homo Nihilis, so we are searching for gigs not only in France, but also abroad. That would be nice to play in North America, but we have unfortunately no plans to play there, but if you have some, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I think it would be difficult to play in North America, notably for the travelling costs, but if one day we have the opportunity to play there, we will surely get it. We are working on a cover song of Darkthrone, Hordes of Nebulah, and on a new song, for a third album.  



CT: Thank you! Feel free to end this interview with whatever insights, commandments and philosophies you wish.

Alexandre: Thank you this interview and for supporting Fatum Elisum. Check our second album which will be available on November the 5^th. Support the real underground and, Doom or be Doomed!

Licrest - Devoid of Meaning

I'm often surprised at just how awful one man projects can be. One person should be able to craft more cohesive music than three or four people trying to simultaneously mesh ideas that at least one other person hates. Normally though, it seems that single-musician projects suffer from the exact opposite. Licrest is a one man project which suffers none of this and exceeds the expectations I have of projects arranged and composed by a single brain. Contrary to what some reviews out there want to indicate, it's actually fascinating at how multidimensional some of the tracks on the project's 2013 debut, Devoid of Meaning can be. Where Armon Nicholson triumphs here is in the amount of unique ideas on the release as well as the variety of tracks. Some tracks have a hardcore tint, others are pure early 90's Doom / Death, some sound like French takes on the genre like Fatum Elisum or Ataraxie and there are more experimental components as well such as the spacey atmosphere of final track "Desolation." The variety indicates, what I feel, is a conscious effort on Armon's part to not sound one sided, as if he is acting out the personalities of different members of his own imaginary band. He's a good actor, and this is a grand play.

Before launching into my accolades, there's little bad to really complain about here. Musically, it's a strong presentation. The production is excellent sounding, without being too clean and clinical. At times there are portions of vocals that could be better mixed, there are periods of riffing which sound great with leads or vocals but that wouldn't stand on their own and it's unfortunate that maybe a little extra care wasn't given to the packaging of the disc. A fuller booklet with a page or two instead of just a front and back image would have been nice to get into the visual side of the project. Understandably, money must have been an issue, as it always is, but after putting so much effort into the musical side of things, why not truly complete the release? The artwork and the layout doesn't have an effect on the music here, but it doesn't enhance it either. It offers little in the way of additional information as to the atmospheres and vibe that Armon is going for with Licrest.

From the opening minutes of Devoid of Meaning, it's pretty obvious what we are going to be offered on this plate. Armon does a good job of using multiple voices on opening track "The Sound of Pain" to imply that there is more to this release than basic growled monotony over slow dramatic melodies. Though the clean vocals here are a bit overbearing, the scratchier chorus vocals offer contrast and a memorable harmonized solo adds some grandeur to the track which, while nowhere near as infinitely exceptional as the lead to The Doomsday Cult's "Like Leafs They Fall," is a reminder and throwback to one of my favorite Doom tracks of all time. Even with this however, it's the rest of the tracks that really make the album. The rhythmic contrasts of "Heart of Darkness," with pummeling double bass beating underneath sweeping chords and cello flourishes - a common addition in the doom / death repertoire recently, it seems - is an aggressive take on the format. The almost purely funeral doom "A Light In Bloom" breaks up the album's pace nicely, a mature addition in a genre where pacing is almost always a major issue for me.

The album's title song, "Devoid of Meaning," a mostly faster beat-down track, as well deeper moments on the album like "Falling Forever" and what I would describe as a 'slutty' "Downfall of the World" are above average even with their strong moments but Armon with Licrest assembles some truly excellent marks with "Dead and Cold," closer "Desolation," and the album highlight "As The Night Goes On." Every riff and melody is memorable here; a weaving of subtle harmonies is present as well as brilliant overt lead work such as is found on Solstice's New Dark Age or the previously mentioned The Doomsday Cult's Samirithans of Misery or A Language for Sad Spirits demos (As an aside, everyone that is into doom NEEDS to own the A Language of Misery compilation. It's required listening). Instead of overusing a single brilliant idea, Armon has arranged a track which is something of perfection here, by single usages of intensely memorable moments without rendering itself into a mishmash of disregarded riffs. With "Dead and Cold," we have a similar example but slightly less captivating. When "Desolation" ends out the performance with a downright - and down-tempo - depressive snarl a'la Highgate in the empty frozen void of space where sound travels forever and nowhere all at once, it's obvious to me that Licrest deserve some attention. Armon will have a difficult time following this up, I think, but I have a feeling whatever he does follow this up with will be another strong addition to a genre which has a lot of average material.

Nephren-Ka - The Fall of Omnius

Naturally any band that tackles Frank Herbert’s famous science fiction novel Dune as a lyrical theme is going sound simultaneously futuristic and sun-scorched, right? Wrong. Nephren-Ka’s “The Fall of Omnius” offers few musical clues to their lyrics and resists the urge to get gimmicky by conservatively sticking to the solid and well worn path of brutal death metal. Yes there are small bits here and there that act as arid desert invoking interludes, but this can be written off as Nile influences shining through. Moreover, the only moment that might suggest that the band is thinking about an interstellar fictional reality is the mechanical outro to “Feydakins storm,” which for a modern death metal album isn’t particularly unusual in the first place. So, while the band’s lyrics may be something a little different, the music is familiar enough to cause deja vu. The familiar sensation is a good one though, and the band’s deviation from expectations in no way detracts from the album’s quality. Nephren-Ka convincingly drums up good memories of at least a handful of other death metal bands in a way that draws from enough different places to keep it from feeling like they are copying anyone in particular.

Nephren-Ka is a band with a lot of potential, and this is more than just a nice way of pointing out that “The Fall of Omnius” isn’t the best album out there. One of the really strong points here is the overall album structure even when individual songs don’t share that strength. At around 43 minutes long, the album feels very tight and coherent because of how well they cross high and low intensity riffs throughout. Take for example how well the frenetic end of “Legend of selim (pt.1)” contrasts to the plodding and crushing start of “The rise of omnius.” Even that seemingly inconsequential mechanical outro on “Feydakins storm” was placed in just the right spot for the band to break up the overall pacing on the album. Coupling this with the aggressive start to “The cymek revolution” shows how well thought out the track ordering and intensity arch are. This is the kind of thought process that is absolutely necessary to create a great album. As noted above, the structural strengths don’t always pan out in each song. Sometimes riffs will linger on a little too long or awkwardly jut into the song like a nerd suddenly discussing the genera of house flies at a cool kid party. This makes it so that the songs are sometimes contradictorily too repetitive and yet disjointed.

When the band fumbles it sucks away a lot of the energy, but a fair amount of killer riffs make this easy to forgive. Throw in a modest serving of guitar solos on top of those riffs and you have yourself a death metal album. With the constant single-note tremolo picking and crunching power chords, the solos and faster flourishes refreshing use both sweeps and longer notes. The band does this without ever coming across as overly techy despite the fact that short clips of the band could be manipulated to make people think that they were listening to Origin. One staple of brutal death metal the band could have used more of is the interplay between raspy and guttural vocals. Given how often the riffs seem to get in repetitive funks, a dynamic vocal section can do wonders. Listen to how the band really pulls this off on “Praise shai-hulud” when the guitars basically just chug for a minute. Gutturals blend into the rhythm where the rasps blend into the melody, its awesome - why couldn’t Nephren-Ka spice things up like this more often? Respect the sandworm, the spice must flow!

In the closing track the band really gets their act together with well placed transitions and finally puts together a song with a strong sense of itself. About half way through, the band uses a breakdown as a prelude to heaviness - instead of a cheap gimmick, it lets the drummer breath and builds the intensity to a tremolo section that sounds a bit like blackened death metal. This is also an illuminating contrast because it shows how the lack of bridging riffs had stifled and suffocated the drummer; e.g. the part at around 2:13 into “Legend of selim (pt.1)” with the abrupt triplet feel solo. Using this as a closing track and having it as the longest also helps to make it a strong bookend for the album. While still a little inflated, the band takes the opportunity to remind everyone what’s happened so far. The popping bass alerts the listener to just how much this element has contributed to the band’s heaviness throughout the album. Towards the end we even get to hear some double-tracked guttural vocals that help maintain momentum through the song’s cyclical structure. “To the golden path” is important because it shows that the band can connect their ideas together within individual songs, even despite clearly being a final track. If the band can write an entire album like this, then they are set to improve on an all ready firm display of metal.

Tape Delays / News

Some updates on the next set of releases. I had some serious problems with the tape plant I was using and therefore, I have switched duplicators. There will be a delay on the Black Chalice - Submission, Black Chalice - Obsidian and Lamentations of the Ashen tapes. On a more positive note, because of the switch I decided to add another release to the current slate of stuff for this year which I had planned on doing early next year. Sorry about the delays but I have to remain true to my principals and I felt that would not be possible with the plant I was working with. Thanks for the understanding. As for the length of the delay, about three weeks... 

Haiduk - Spellbook

Haiduk, or The Haiduks as my mp3 program automatically labelled them - a gross mistake in every way based on the actual band name and the plurality (Haiduk is a one man band) - is a one man project out of Calgary which calls itself a death / thrash band but which sounds like neither but reminds me mostly of Kataklysm in a melodic sense. Aesthetically, there is a lot here in common with black metal. The cartoonish album art bears resemblance to the dusty and occult covers in the genre, but the symbols which represent each song on the album remind me less of runes and more of the icons representing building options in Populous: The Beginning. Still, the layout and effort is well done here with a nice eight page booklet and a host of reading material dealing with magic and occult topics and stuff. Musically, Haiduk still deals with issues of identity in bringing this side of the band to the auditory altar. On a less aesthetic note, the music on Spellbook suffers from what I would describe as a lack of additional input. As a one man band, self-critique is almost more important than production and while the production on the release isn't bad, the music lacks something that at minimum a second mind could provide. There isn't a lot of nuance or depth to these tracks for all the twisty riffs and technical playing.

Take for example opening track "Lich" which rummages around with a few riff ideas for a period of just under a minute before Haiduk's sole proprietor Luka Milojica pushes out some death metal vocals. The opening riffs make appearances throughout the track in the exact same configuration and manner. There are no real variations on anything and nothing is used to elevate the riffs to a higher plateau of composition. Second track "Stormcall" improves slightly as evidenced by the verse riffs utilizing more variations and two separate phrasings but lack of differentiation is one of Haiduk's biggest problems on the disc. Sure, there are lots of little nifty noodles and frills which technically make the tracks different. Even with that though, there are a lot of similar melodies, riff structures and textures throughout the release. Even the drumming - programmed - is often reminiscent of itself throughout the album instead of being creative and unique. Many tracks use the same thrashy drum patterns which lose their effect due to the lack of dynamics which are usually the major problem with artificial drums. Sometimes the drum patterns are flat out strange - like an over usage of the splash in some songs.

I don't want to say all is bad here though. One of Haiduk's strongest attributes is Luka's guitar playing and intricacies. The guy is a good guitarist and writes some interesting riff ideas. He's got pretty nimble fingers for a dude that wears a black curtain all the time. A track like "Forcefield" shows his ability fairly well with a lot of tricky riffs full of hammer-ons and pull-offs. In a track like "Hex" which happens to be my favorite on the album, Luka shows he can craft some interesting thrashy melodic death metal. Hex is one of the few songs which seems to have it's own character on the release and lets go of some of the technical mumbo-jumbo at times. Luka's voice isn't bad either on the tracks where there are vocals. For Luka to really take Haiduk that next step into being a really excellent project - which I think isn't far fetched - he would have to work on pacing and making sure each track has standout moments. I'd like to see more song variety. Luka already has a pretty unique riff-writing style so incorporating some slower moments, some different arrangements and compositional techniques would emphasize the better aspects of Haiduk.

Spellbook, for me, doesn't really quite achieve what Luka was aiming for. With the bio sheet describing that Haiduk "is a direct channeling of haunting musical ideas... luring the listener towards themes of magic, evil, nature and myth" not once do I feel any of these makes a showing. Also stated was that Spellbook was "a black magic conjuring of fast guitars and powerful riff attacks summoning an atmosphere of true darkness." While the riffs are fast, there is very little atmosphere on the release. It's a rather clinical production. Also, because a lot of the riffs are so noodley, it's difficult to feel much power in them. I'm not really sure what kind of metal fan would really like this but if I had to guess, maybe someone just getting into more technical thrash would find the busy riffs but stable and tame underlying song structures appealing. Sometimes something can be so busy that it becomes boring.

Blood Pollution / Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander - 2 in 1

The artwork for this split is pretty nifty - it looks like an old Game Boy game, with a comic artwork sticker on a cartridge, even labeled as "2 in 1" in that good old orange/yellow fade text. There are even pixelated band images inside. Nice concept there.

Blood Pollution play a mix of punkish rethrash and rock and roll, pretty heavy and bass-driven, fronted by Lemmy wannabe who isn't nearly as grizzled or gravelly but gives the band most of their character. There's a mix of hardcore punk guitar work reminiscent of Murphy's Law, mixed with the obvious Motorhead speed metal/rock and roll rhythm section. They've done a decent job of carving out a certain style, but the music is neither memorable nor particularly interesting. Between a few listens of this, all I could really remember is that it was punk that lacked aggression and energy, and metal that lacked riffs and power.

ZZZ are a dime-a-dozen crossover wiffle thrash band that manage one pseudo-anthemic chorus of the caliber of your average teenage punk band and little more. A band really shouldn't be able to lose my attention with five and a half minutes of original material, but I've already zoned out by the time they get to the cover of a Blood Pollution song, which is a bit better than their originals, but they're still not very good for a pizzacore band.

If I were to come across these two bands at a show, I'd watch Blood Pollution as they seem like they'd be alright live, but I'd leave rather than watch ZZZ.

Emanation - One Soul, One Body, One Spirit

You stand in a musky room lit only by candles and patiently form a circle with your peers around the old wooden table. As you wait for the spirits to speak to you, what do you hear? Faint cries, children playing in an empty gym or underground veterinary hospital, electric buzzing, and distant rumbles and clicks. A loud knock startles you.



Emanation uses these very sounds as a way of showcasing their spiritism theme, a theme that is so prominent that despite pacing concerns, we hear mostly these sounds for the first ten whole minutes of this release. With a ghastly wail, the song then breaks into droning tremolo picked guitars and we later often hear a kick drum so loud and powerful that it makes you feel like your eardrums were located on top of your pounding heart. Even when introducing traditional metal instruments, the band keeps the same ghosty mood by using echo and repetition to distort the sound nearly beyond recognition. Vocals, guitars, and percussion all melt together in a indiscernible vapor where even melody and rhythm are hard to identify. For listeners that are into ambient moody, hypnotic, and repetitive music this is good news - for everyone else, the band has a serious pacing problem. Those first ten minutes of noises may seem like a bold decision, but they pale in comparison to the fact that the first track clocks in at a staggering Wagnerian 44 minutes in length. Even beyond the first track, the entire work can be viewed as “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit,” and one song. Since the music is so neutral, this is a test of attention span rather than patience.

As a recurring theme, the long ambient sections serve to break up “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit” into chunks of relative noise or silence while generating a creepy atmosphere. Unlike the many bands that toy with spooky ambiences, Emanation manages to make them quite palatable by incorporating layers of sounds that create a realistic feeling of silence. In the real world, when things get quiet there is are often still many different sounds vying for attention. This prevents things from becoming flat and the band maintains a faint sense melodies by peppering in slow forlorn synths. These slight touches can also be heard in how the band uses almost imperceptibly quiet tones and ringing as a foundation for their samples. Each droning tone helps tie one rumbling to another and notes become individually unimportant as they are enveloped by the wall of sound. Emanation has an abundance of mood and a strong sense for how to be simultaneously quiet and still musical. 


With the heavy sections, soaring high notes act almost like feedback on top of the droning tremolo picked wall of sound. The guitar tones are fuzzy and crackling, creating a seamless and static-like blend that immediately recalls the distant and haunting electrical noises from the quieter parts. The meditative feel is more enveloping with layers of textures. During the metal bits, the band often creates such layers by having a single droning tremolo picked note while other melodic lines weave toward and away from that note. In much of the music guitar-like buzzing acts as a second melody on top the more normal notes. Even the vocals sit in the background and the tortured wailing acts as another layer of sound. At times, this approach feels conceptually more interesting than the execution. This is due to Emanation's habit of stretching out ideas, which is most likely intentional. Another seemingly deliberate and unusual part of the music is how the drums are sloppy and disorganized in a natural way. Abrupt, yet driving and never jarring because of the support from the noisy guitar's enveloping wall of sound.


The effect of “One Soul, One Body, One Spirit's” homogeneity however is surprisingly neutral, the band does not need the repetition but it doesn't harm the music in a significant way. The band envelopes the listener in a way that is compelling yet far from exciting. This is clear because even after around an hour and a half of music no particular section sticks out as memorable yet the experience is never tiresome. For example, a soft and high pitched piano or bell rings consistently serve to make the quiet sections an overall pleasant although redundant experience. In a sense, this is extraordinarily impressive given how often the band returns to the same musical idea without ever exhausting it. This droning makes the release almost like a one-riff or even riffless “Filosofem.” A hypnotic atmosphere and careful musical layering will however only take a band so far, which leaves this release rather flawed but still enjoyable.  Music for long-distance runners into black metal, redundant yet pleasurable music for repetitive time intensive activities.

Master Fury - Circles of Hell Review #4 and Metal-Core Zine Interview

Master Fury's Don, recently did an interview with Chris Forbes of Metal-Core zine:

"MC: I read that your debut album ( hell party) was the 1st thing that you put out? Why no demos? How as it going into the studio for the 1st time?

MF: Yeah "Hell Party" ... for some reason people keep referring to it as a demo .. it's not .. it's a full fledged full length LP. We never had the intention of putting out anything less. An actual demo never crossed our minds and I'm glad to see you stating it as an album, thanks for that ..  \mm/ We looked at demo's as a sell out, kissing the ass of the record industry just to make it. We were never about kissing any ones ass .. so no demo's .. it was all or nothing. Going into the studio was a trip because we really had an idea of WHAT we wanted, but not the gear to do it .. and we also knew that in order for anything to even sound good you had to go pro. And getting to work with who we got to work with made it that much more kick ass."

Read the full, in depth interview here at Metal-Core Zine. Also, this Review from Goul's Crypt appeared:

When you say thrash metal most people think 1980's USA. There are the essential giants like Slayer, Overkill, Testament and Metallica, and the hidden and forgotten gems like Holocross, Heretic, Powerlord and Master Fury. Formed in 1986 they only ever released 2 albums, the rough Hell Party album from 1988 and the barbarous Circles of Hate album from 1989. They went on hold for an unknown number of years and then had a brief reunion in 2010, but it wasn't before 2013 we would see another Master Fury release, the two albums compiled on Circles of Hell by Contaminated Tones Productions.
Master Fury has a very abrasive sound. Their approach to thrash metal is on the chaotic side of things and more focussed on speed and coarseness than anything else, making them probably one of the fastest bands at the time. Through the metallic din of Master Fury's aggressive guitars the amazingly precise riffs shine. Where Hell Party thrives on a coarse, simplistic thrash recipe building up to and colliding in the final mosh-inducing track "Riot" the second half of the compilation, the Circles of Hate album, takes a more technical and commonplace approach to the genre. The early material is distinguished by the near constant speed with which it is furiously provided. On Circles of Hate Master Fury were progressing as songwriters and were more comfortable with slowing down once in a while in order to build up momentum for a particularly epic solo or building atmosphere.
The band seems to have always favoured a trio-lineup consisting of the guitars and vocals of Digg Rouze and various bassists and drummers. As mentioned above Master Fury evolved as a band even if their was only 1 year between the 25-minute Hell Party and the slightly longer Circles of Hate. On tracks like Corporate War and Life's a Bitch they give way for their crossover tendencies fuelled by ferocious d-beats and gang-shouts, a style that wasn't at all present of Hell Party. I could imagine a song like Road Hog off of Hell Party being an early example of the Motörhead/Venom-inspired punky speed metal that has recently made a comeback, and there are more examples of songs that fit the bill as really good metal songs, but with the production being so muddy and deranged it's hard to make out anything other than a few riffs here and there, making the tracks hard to tell apart.
Master Fury already perfectly sum up their material with their name. Furious, fast as fuck thrash. The extremity of the albums put Master Fury somewhere in the grey area between thrash and death metal that had a couple of years prior been completely dominated by bands like Death and Possessed. Master Fury may not be the authors of the most original or memorable kind of thrash metal, but if you feel like getting your skull pounded by uncompromising riffs, powerful drumming and screaming vocals The Circles of Hell compilation is as good a way get your needs fulfilled as any. The combination of the two tracks celebrate an above-average band, though their material never quite achieves true classic or gem status. 7/10 guitars.

 Get a copy of the album now, for a measly $10.

Polluted Inheritance - Ecocide

There's death metal, there's Death Metal and then there is DEATH METAAHL. Polluted Inheritance's Ecocide falls squarely into the Death Metal notch. There is a lot to like about Ecocide: good riffs, awesome production, vocals with a killer snarl and a crisp clarity but the album's biggest flaw, a lack of unique personality, jettisons an otherwise commendable offering once again to the racks of dusty could-have-beens; an appropriate place where this release has in actuality sat for over twenty years - and probably could have sat for another decade - without much negative effect on the population of individuals who eat up these re-releases with the tenacity you'd find in a pair of sex-deprived nymphomaniac garbage collectors meeting for the first time over a split bag of old porno magazines. Vic Records' re-release tacks on a handful of tracks from an early demo to drag the release over the original run-time of thirty nine minutes.

Tracks like "Memories of Sadness" remind me of Death's Human paired with the thrashier elements of an album like Dismember's Like an Everflowing Stream though Ecocide has neither the aggression of Dismember's classic or the powerful blast of determination that Human exemplifies. Multiple listens will inevitably lead to tracks like "Fear" or it's shadowing track, "Stillborn" jutting out like a precipice into the waters of general normalcy with a strong introductory riff however they then will fall back into the album's habit of  complacency in which portions of indistinguishable composition reign supreme. Ronald Camonier is impressive as a guitarist - as is Erwin Wesdorp - but his vocals are the highlight of the album. I was hooked on them from second track "Dissolved" and the crystal clear bellowing of the second verse's proclamation that 'eyes transform into liquid, flow down the face like tears.'

In fact, across the album memorable lyrics are one of the surprising aspects of the album - how often are lyrics the most memorable component of a death metal album? With Camonier's powerful baritone growls, it's easy to hear some of the album's more bizarre moments, such as in "Memories of Sadness," a track which hints at sexual abuse or the awkward phrasings of "After Life" such as 'I am lying here being dead, it feels like having sweet dreams.' While Camonier elicits from his throat an impressive performance, the album offers a lot of positions for some vocal experimentation, something unfortunately absent from Ecocide. Aside from the lyrics, favorite tracks include "Fear" which reminds me of Death's Leprosy with the production of Death's Human and "Eaten." Also awesome is final track "Look Inside," and it's incredibly groovy introduction and twisted riffs.

Ultimately, if anything applies to Ecocide it's that there's a good possibility that more than ten listens will thoroughly implant the sensation of this being an underrated album with a lot to chew on. Even after six or seven listens, I find I enjoy the album more and more with each listen, even if I know it's not really a landmark release or mandatory listening. There are a lot of ditches and nooks to find, highlighted by a tight and balanced production which provides great separation between instruments. Ecocide is an enjoyable old school death metal album, worth a listen for anyone that's into early 90's death metal. It's also a good starting album for anyone trying to get into Death Metal, because the vocals - usually the offending factor - are less likely to hinder the enjoyment due to their clarity.