format: LP, CD
year: 1991
country: UK
label: Communiqué Records
#: CMGLP 004
info: Printed inner sleeve w/ lyrics & pics
style: Prog Metal
Side A:
Side B:
The least rare album I've reviewed in quite a while, and it mainly happened because I just couldn't stop writing once I'd started on what was only to be a short comment on the Communiqué Records-page. Yeah, it's one those records, and those kind of records are as important a part of The Corroseum's reviews-section as any top-mega-supa-rarity out there...
As much as I tend to use the expression myself, I always found the the saying "a love-or-hate record" kinda snobbish. It's a bit like saying "it's probably not for you - you not being as smart as me and whatnot..". That being said, this is a love-or-hate record.
...Ha ha! Bet you thought I was being snarky.. No, this one is for stupid people like us who don't understand the greatness of Prog-Metal icons like Watchtower, Psychotic Waltz and Mekong Delta and just love weird shit. It's so beautifully, distinctly British and it's not only the accent and attitude of the vocals, the general vibe breahtes the same poisoned air as Deliverance, Deep Switch, Hell, Sabbat, as well as rogues like Warfare and English Dogs.
After the mood-filled "History Re-Written" intro, which could be snatched right off a Sabbat or Hell album, the transition into the first pummeling Speed Metal moments of "Welcome.." sounds downright awkward. Then... Madness. The first minute of the song is actually a quite fair cross section of the album as a whole and easily lets itself be described as exactly one third each of Deliverance, Deep Switch and Warfare. Not finely minced and all smoothly mixed up mind you, but rather cut down into chunky, hard-to-swallow pieces and merely scrambled about to see what comes up on top and yes, it's exactly as unnerving as it sounds for the first handful of listens. And then you'll stow away the record for a decade or two, come back to it, laugh our arse of and - as said before - either fall in love or throw it away. If the former, "Radio Death" might very well make you change your mind again and throw it back into quarantine because even if you get the thing with the funky break at the beginning being all satire (it being about the plague of commercial radio and all) it's still all a little too much of that chunky salsa. Just give 'em 'til "Atom Bomb" coz it's bllllllloddy aaaaaaawsum... All yum-yum-yummy riffs and delicious breaks and still all messed up & sick & maybe even a bit silly but Fucking. Good. And heavy! Really.
B-side opener "Cesspit.." continues in a similar, menacing style but now with added extra VOIVOD! Pompy & doomy Voivod even, which is best Voivod. Still, my one favourite moment of the album has to be the spectacular "Vigin Blood". This is, in but a few words, Pure Cardiacs-Metal. That might not say much to many of you reading this but just take my word for it when I tell you this is 2-and-a-half minutes of pure pomptastic, epic insanity!
Closing the vinyl version is the lengthy Nostradamus-salut "(Death Will Come From) China" and it's all the best bits of the previous bits, i.e. even more Voivod, doom, Cardiacs, various flavours of British bile... heck, parts of it even reminds me of that one great moment off the Flames Of Hell-album (that would be "Heroes In Black"). If you'll be aiming for the CD-version you also get the great "Rot In Burning Hell", another 8 minutes of Atomgodly greatness, here picking up more than a few moves from Satan ...and also the band Satan.
So how does it compare to their 1989 debut on GWR? It doesn't. While I do enjoy the catchy post-NWOBHM/pop-punk hybrid of "Wow!" quite a bit, it doesn't have the same Metal-approach as "History.." and frankly sounds like a completely different band. A bit of a love-or-hate record...