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Spooky Fingers: Necrobutchers and Semen Sippers

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 December 6 2009 at 08:43:20 AM



Ia Ia Ia! Formed in 1993 by Roberto Valle, (ex Chasm, Cenotaph), Thy Only Forgotten release their first CD, Mythos Daemonium, this month - paying proper tribute to its titular patron, Pazuzu. Valle, paired once again with The Chasm’s Antonio Leon on skins and Daniel Corchado (contributing voices and accompaniment on synthesizer and guitars), showcases that rare ability to combine signatures of various subgenres both naturally and compellingly. While no doubt comparisons remain, particularly to Sweden’s Dawn, Mythos Daemonium is a surprising yield from this year’s bounty, if even paradoxically, with two of the featured six tracks dating back to the earliest years of the band. Racing excitedly with chainsaw strumming carving its illuminated path through the cold desert air, voices form a tortured choir, whose weary howls are filled with yearning for those “secrets beyond mortality.” Mythic, majestic, Metal all the way.

Of likewise infamous pedigree comes Vault of Membros from New Jersey’s Disma, a riff on the Finnish band Xysma conceived by Funebrarum’s Darly Kahan and Incantation’s Bill Venner, with ex-Incantation frontman Craig Pillard once more at the helm. Meaning: Can’t fuck this up. 3 tracks of hostile, muddy, macabre Death Metal. And not a single word more need be attempted in describing for you what it sounds like nor what it means for the future of the genre. For aficionados, yes, just as it was meant to be.

Not so for the DVD release of Stefan Rydehed’s inept and unnecessary A/V project Pure Fucking Mayhem, a documentary sequel to his first, straight to youtube, film (Cult of Aggression) about Norway’s most infamous band, sharing absolutely no clear idea what kind of audience it’s aiming for. In it, find a bevy of still photographs and unwatchable, seconds long clips of early Mayhem performances set to lifelessly read narration by Kajsa Rydehed, and spliced with a non-sequitur series of paintings by Nico Claux. Appearances by former and current band members Kjetil Manheim, Atilla Csihar, Jørn Stubberud (Necrobutcher), and Stian Johannsen (Occultus), who looks like an Orthodox Rabbi dressed like DJ Run, litter the first hour before genuflecting before the band’s later work. Brief segments reveal the unusual pathology driving vocalist Pelle Ohlin (Dead), present (I believe, truthfully) Oystein Arseth as a lagging phony with a good eye for talent and a mind for sensationalism, and dismiss Varg Vikernes (who you wish hadn’t stopped at just one) almost entirely. Save for Necrobutcher’s bitter and delusional comments that if the band had managed to keep their original singer, they would today be Europe’s version of Slayer, there’s little entertainment to be had and hardly any new information revealed.

Finally, Ruins of Beverast AKA Alexander Von Meilanwald unleashes his latest, Foulest Semen of a Sheltered Elite. Question mark. Easy to hear the continuity across three albums, but whereas 2006’s Rain upon the Impure seemed to burn from the mouths of caverns, with proper production Von Meilanwald now works above ground, erecting his own megaliths upon the sepulchers of old with striking similarity to works by Burzum and Enslaved combined with the ominous, structural nightmare of Doom Metal’s protracted chord crunching. The feeling arduous when after 30 minutes, fear, anxiety and wonder finally arise at the album’s summit in the gargantuan form of “Mount Sinai Moloch,” and then completely redundant for a full 50 minutes thereafter.

[Todd DePalma]





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