That Glorious “I Believe In The Dark Lord” Sample From Necrophobic “Unholy Prophecies” (The Nocturnal Silence)

Every now and then, someone says (or writes) something so inane that the only proper response seems to be to quote the archly disturbing rant sampled in Necrophobic “Unholy Prophecies” from their 1993 melodic Swedish death metal album The Nocturnal Silence which goes something like this:

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Earache Records Unveils Morbid Angel Altars of Madness: Ultimate Edition 2CD

Record companies continue digging in their vaults to release rare material and actual remasters from classic underground metal bands, bypassing the tendency for ProTools “remasters” that amounted to compression of tracks ripped from the existing CD, in an effort to appeal to Generation X as they head toward five decades.

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Retrospective: Septic Flesh – Ophidian Wheel

In the modern metal lexicon, European metal has often been used to denote bands that relied extensively on Iron Maiden harmonies, keyboards, pseudo-classical melodies, female vocalists, tremolo picked riffs and overall less influence from Pantera and Metallica. Septic Flesh have come to epitomize this style despite adding a lot more Metalcore elements to keep with the times. Before the name change, the band were once an overlooked force and presented many ideas that metal as a whole was never fully able to capitalize on. Ophidian Wheel is the summit of the band’s creativity and pushes the romantic qualities of metal even further.

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Lord Wind – The Forest Is My Kingdom

The case of Rob Darken is a symptomatic one. He is undeniably the most important (and enduring!) metal musician from Poland and Eastern Europe in history. And yet, when black metal or folk is concerned, even on his own soil he is overlooked in favor of others, like Behemoth or Percival Schuttenbach respectively, solely on basis of some external attributes of their music. It seems that for some time now Darken is trying to gain at least a bit of the recognition he deserves: the exposure in Nergal’s biography, playing live with both Graveland and Lord Wind, and now the changes in the very formula of Lord Wind on The Forest Is My Kingdom.

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Doug Cerrito and Hate Eternal – Conquering the Throne

Hate Eternal’s Conquering the Throne is a fairly mediocre album plagued by the symptoms that were spreading across the Death metal universe at the time. The need for even more brutality was visible on one side of the spectrum while the need to rival the more overground and Rock derived bands on their terms dominated the other side of the spectrum. Erik Rutan had finished his second stay with Morbid Angel who had just failed at accomplishing any of the objectives with the juvenile Gateways to Annihilation and would then form Hate Eternal who simplified everything Ripping Corpse had done into music that attempted to be memorable and punishing but ended up being predictable and flat. Though three songs stand out on this album, showing at times a level of composition far beyond anything that Rutan could ever dream of conceiving. These would become Doug Cerrito’s last contributions to Death metal.

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SMR – Overestimated Failed Abortions from the Underground

Sometimes for no actual logical reason, terrible metal bands become adored despite not having a gimmick like satanic Abba songs or a mentally deranged topless DJ as a vocalist. These bands offer nothing of interest even on initial listens and should be actively mocked for their pretentious unsubstantiated claims.

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