Metal Blade Records has reissued the three Immolation albums that they hold the rights to: Here in After, Failures for Gods, and Close to a World Below. These three records, the latter two with flashier but less pure drummer Alex Hernandez, are some of the bands peak works and saw them completely leave behind the few vestiges of speed metal that remained on Dawn of Possession, which is perhaps still their best overall work. Following Close to a World Below, the quality of the band’s material greatly declined even though their last record with Hernandez, Unholy Cult, was still a strong release.
The CD versions are available now and retain the original mastering. The upcoming LPs have been remastered for vinyl (probably from the CDs) by Patrick W. Engel at Temple of Disharmony studios. All may be ordered from Metal Blade’s indie merch page.
Tags: Close to a World Below, compact disc, death metal, Failures for Gods, Here In After, immolation, metal blade records, reissues, vinyl
Nice.
Now I have a chance to buy these.
hell yeah
Each album they release is worse than the last. “Weight of devotion-uh” growled somewhere in there, bouncy riff, random dissonant crap then blast beats that come out of nowhere. Formula for every “good” Immolation song and every bad one.
This band always reminded me of someone that has been raped by a priest in his childhood.
“Father You’re Not A Father”
You can add Profanatica to that list.
…but they like sodomy. Immolation’s stuck in taking a cold shower and crying in a corner mode.
Profanatica would gladly have anal sex with priests. It wouldn’t be rape.
Hahaa, true, dude! I’ve always thought that, too. They were the band that stayed Realist, not occult satanic rebellion magic level.
Then again, Deicide seems that way too. Like, you are REALLY that angry, unrelentingly, about Christianity?
Failures for Gods is kind of crap, on “Close to…” they got their songwriting chops back. Here in After is pretty brilliant albeit simplistic. You wonder a little if they used the super muddy production because they were insecure.
FFG is most certainly not crap, but I would agree that it is the weakest of the first four, which are all worth owning. My personal favorite are the first two but CTAWB is also excellent, hilarious lyrics notwithstanding…
The newer albums are aiming for a speed/Pantera metal angle, but Here in After is a masterpiece and the three albums after it — Failures For Gods, Close To A World Below, and Unholy Cult — definitely have their moments. After that, the EP is good and the rest is not of interest to me, but it would be ludicrous to argue that this band does not have its appeal. They need a new shtick however since the anti-God stuff has gotten rehashed so many times since their first album by less significant bands that it has become a trope. Maybe take on democracy? Egotism? Irish and Italian immigration?
Dawn of possession is the only Immolation album I own. I’ve listened to albums like harnessing ruin and unholy cult and found them mediocre at best. The only one of these reissues I would be interested in purchasing would be Here In After. I do remember liking songs like Burn with Jesus and nailed to gold, I almost bought that album years ago, but for some reason I didn’t.
I`m just going to leave this here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUVr2xnGIEo
I’m just going to leave this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1X8Nsjqd0c
Can you tell he difference between Metallica and a dead pig on a stick?
.
.
.
Neither can I.
But I (slightly deaf) can tell the difference between a great club gig an anything Hammet, Hetfield & Ulrich, Inc have for the last 28 years.
That was Live Burial/ Vacivus/ Black Skies Burn/ Carcinoma in London (Black Heart) yesterday.
Reportedly, that’s a “Gothic-styled pub” but I didn’t notice anything of that. The room was dark but that was about it, the music they were playing was late 60s and 70s stuff, of the Black Betty kind (nice) and I’ve been forced to listen to Riders of the Storm for the first time in 17 odd years or so (absolutely not nice — “The Doors must be closed!”). The venue itself is a fairly small hall on the first floor separated from the pub by two flights of stairs. They sell drinks there, too, but only a very limited selection, and at a steep price. The acoustic is such that some damage to hearing is to be expected but the sound itself was good.
Carcinoma is a three-piece (dr/ g,voc/ b) whose facebook self-accusations is »blackened death noise«. While not showcasing the thick-rimmed glasses and other apparel this suggests, the music wasn’t much better than the moniker.
Black Skies Burn play blackened thrash, skater imagery inclusive. They were pretty cool.
Both Vacivus and Live Burial[*] do death metal, the former more oriented towards the dark and the latter more going into the (comic) gore direction. I’ve spent some quite some time listening to the Vacivus EP. I also like the other record but that’s more ‘party metal’ (not to be mistaken as being anyhow substanceless musically). These were two great gigs, starting with the lead guitar and ending (no order implied) with the drumming. In particular, the Live Burial drummer plays very cool stuff. There’s a final concert of this tour in Liverpool tonight (should already be on) and anybody who reads this (if possible) before 9:30pm UK time should consider going there in case he isn’t already.
[*] They will presumably fall under some kind of “not recorded in a shack in the woods in Norway in 1893” aka “I already hated this stuff before these guys were born!” verdict but I like them.
That cunt Jonas Åkerlund again. That’s why imagery is actually so well orchestrated here. But its purpose reveals typical autocannibalism on the part of whites.
Very nice!!!!