Oggi il Dottor Marciume ascolta: Black Prophecies “Azathoth” demo, Black Metal from Genova, s/p 1988
Before the post-“Hammerheart” deviation and nazi roleplayers raised in Iraq there was a time when Black Metal was still a name known to few and dealt with scary esoterica and horror. Among the handful of bands that pioneered the genre in the ’80s we had the great local Black Prophecies who, a bit like Morbid Angel, mixed elements of lovecraftian cosmic horror with the dark side of religion.
Along with other bands like Poison, Semen of Satan or Hastur from Peru these bands defined the term Black Metal at its best, when despite (and because of) almost unintelligible rehearsal quality you get the sense of absolute loss and perdition, of being caught in a maelstrom of formless beings of teeth and horns ripping you to pieces but while Death Metal intends to inflict pain to your soul outwards from the rending of flesh, this music was supposed to tear apart straight at the soul, bringing pain outwards from the inner self.
There are screams of agony in this putrid mass of sound that resemble a grotesque reassembling of extreme metal elements, the inch by inch skinning of the spirit done through the olystic combination of atmosphere and brutal demonic violence: the riffs are straight to the point, at the same time minimalist but ripe of negative energy, and the evocative, tribal drumming perfect for the job, sometimes everything slows down to a grinding, scary atmosphere that defines the term BLACK. It’s part Medieval Prophecy AND part Christ’s Death, you’re damn lucky you can get it in the brilliant collection that Terror From Hell Records released in 2012.
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, one of the best Swedeath demos of the time, a thing so dark and heavy it could well be Finnish (whopss!). This band released albums so shitty during their late career that someone might be deceived in thinking they were never any good and they would be wrong as fuck. Loyal to the “first demo was better” adagio, which despite webzine SunnO hipster editors actually is absolutely true of most scandinavian death metal bands, this is a band which released a cvlt gem in the golden year of the genre. To be honest, this second effort is not nearly as good as the first one but I believe it’s mostly due to thinner production and a thinner sound as structurally it’s not much different. This is classic solid mid tempo Death Metal with guttural vocals and some very vague 80’s slayerish riminiscences, but with way more chugs, could be a bit like Grave’s poorer cousins if one wants to classify different schools of a subgrenre’s subgenre. This plus the following demo were both repressed on CD by almight Thrash Corner label from Puerto Rico 25 years ago, I have currently no idea of the cost of that CD today but it was a pretty cheap second spin basket kind of record (means it’s probably worth 20000 euros after the age of Ekeroth).
