Dead Congregation - Graves of the Archangels

Menin aeide Thea…

So begins the Iliad as does Graves of the Archangels. Unrepentant violence, espousal of physical and philosophical impermanence – etc. Weeks after listening to this record, reading and re-reading lyrics, zoning out on their MySpace page – that’s all I’ve got. A sip of tea. Another sip. I look at paper scraps. Scribbles like the diarrhea of insects. Fragments of ideas. Remnants of places, things. Hellas. Attica. Iliad. The oral poem announces its theme. The word as thunderclap: Menin. As in Big “W” Wrath. Nope: Not anger. Not rage. Wrath. Hellenic Wrath. Epic Wrath. As a noun vocalized: Seeps from the tongue’s papillae in a pestilent mist. As an action: A consuming emotive reckoning reserved for belligerent godhead – place and time left at its discretion. Judgment and due punishment carried out with excessive and prejudicial ease. It’s no chore; it’s just the way things are. Wrath: Sing O’ Goddess… Ah. Hmm? That’s it. Microseconds into “Hostis Humani Generis” – Enemy of Mankind – it’s there and it ebbs and flows automatically, unto itself, thoughtless, unknowable – a machine at once organic and artificial, dead alive, everywhere and nowhere.

Dead Congregation. Anastasis Valtsanis. Vangelis Voyiantiz. “T.K.” “K.P.” The initials the likely result of unwieldy Hellenic names. Four men? It’s as ridiculous as being able to ascribe sources to Gaul’s Doomsday Machine, Antaeus. How can something so unbalanced by emotion come off so steely? Fuck. I play “Vanishing Faith” over and over again, earbuds buried in my brain. It’s the guitars. It’s all about the fucking guitars. Traditional gutter vox slides from that gravyboat like the quickcrete it is. Splintered drum buckets traded for a Browning .50 cal and belts upon belts upon belts: RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! Valtsanis and “T.K.” unfurl as wind-whipped flags. Lines canter. Lines sprint. There’s no bullshit dodging, no hackneyed trade-offs. Guitarists as system-builders? Why the fuck not…? Their tonal sermon straight from Attica, C.E.: episteme is aesthesis. Empowered with lyrical metaphisik: Knowledge is perception. “Rafael, Sandalfon, Michael, Uriel: fourfold immortality rid of life / debased in mortal graves / in shameful uprising rejoined / fourfold immortality rid of life / fourfold renunciation of LOGOS / fourfold blasphemy of death.” Transubstantiation dealt from earth dog paws. Heidegger, hang your hat on that meat hook.

The program stays within befitting confines: Rotting flesh and decaying bones. Flesheaters. Blooddrinkers. Rats, ravens and goats. Existential fires; Power und Will. Needs, wholes, souls. Weeds, trees – the flickering lights of faith. Voids and perpetuity. The Prayer for Total Death. Dead Congregation continues. They come. “Eating his flesh / & drinking his blood / I pray for total death!” Hellenic Orthodoxy is subverted, of course, to its appropriate end. Death Metal iconography is depleted quickly while the guitars remain, swimming, serpentine. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! Ambience? It’s Byzantine. The bell’s lonely toll nothing more than an instantaneous assemblage of comrades. And most folks thought fucking Mortem bore the standard for Death Metal’s requisite renaissance… Banish the thought, peckerwoods. To paraphrase Lance B. Johnson – the surfer – ‘it’s here man; it’s really here.’

[Stewart Voegtlin]

type: reviews    keywords: death metal, dei carnifex, hellas, lhp015,   

• 103 comments

  

  jniff

  11:58 AM on Jun 19, 2008 // reply »
  
  Cool that you mentioned Antaeus. On one hand, these two bands don't sound remotely similar, but on the other, this unrelenting wrath is present in both. Besides Incantation and Immolation, Antaeus kept popping into my mind when I was listening to this.
  
  Along with Necros Christos and Drowned, it's good to see some active bands keeping the old flame alive.

 

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