PARABELLUM

Writing about the records that mean the most to you is always the hardest. Suddenly you realize you've overused far too many big words on far too small albums and now you're sitting there, loss for words, when a piece of vinyl like this comes up for scrutiny. Well, what you loose in size you take back in numbers. In one sentence: "Sacrilegio" is a very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very special record. First of all: "Sacrilegio" is THE Most Brutal and Evil\m/ 80's Metal ever recorded. And that's a fact. Period. Capiche? BATHORY should be glad they never toured the South American continent, or they would have sounded like a glam version of SPINAL TAP coming on stage after this lot. Yes, it is that sick. So much in fact, that a lot of people I've met who are into "Old Kvlt Blakk Metal" simply find it too disturbing. You could love an album for that reason alone.

Unlike many of their contemporary Brazilian counterparts, PARABELLUM's strength lies in fierce originality and a fucking EXTREME production! Soundwise this is totally off the good/bad-scale. I wish I had a clue how they got those guitars to sound like that. I have NEVER heard such extreme distortion in my life. I was literally stunned the initial half minute of my first listening. But PLEASE, if you ever get a chance to hear this record, DO NOT give it a quick listen via some mp3 on your computer speakers, or through shitty Walkman earplug phones. Those first few bars on "Madre Muerte" are meant to be experienced on a good sound system and fucking L-O-U-D, any other way would be a total waste of a unique listening experience. Imagine standing in this huge, corroded industrial complex somewhere in the damp Colombian jungles with 4 lunatics torturing their speakers to death with weird spiky, stringy things that only in your most horribly morbid nightmares might resemble guitars, and you're not even halfway there. And that's just the first few bars mind you! The music then staggers along in a very weird, jerky, rumbling pace, until we reach the only minor letdown with this EP a few minutes into the track: an acoustic break with horribly out-of-tune guitars, although I'm not sure to this day weather this really ruins the song or makes it even more disturbed. Then they really take off. The rabid blastnoise-symphony than follows simply defies description. When the screaming, tortured guitars goes into their highest pitch somewhere towards the end of this almost 8 minute epic it's just... eh... uh... Oh... My.. doG.

...But there's more! Funny thing is there's another track on the backside of this plastic "EP" gizmo. "Engendro 666" gives us more of a freight-train, head-on thrashing* in an eerie pace uncomfortably wedged between mid-pace and speed. Not quite the epic like the A-side, but with some really cool, unconventional breaks & bridges and a heavy, Deathdoomy chorus. Towards the end we are presented with more of that high-pitched, agonizingly cool guitar work that surely will produce bumps on a very very very dead goose. To sum it up, "Sacrilegio" is one of those handful of recordings you encounter in your life that really moves you, and in my personal experience they were so much more than just "the most brutal band ever, dude!", they were a unique musical entity of their own. The possibility that I'm just overanalyzing a bunch of kids fucking around in their mom's basement is of little or no importance. We're talking spiritual shit here man!

This 12" is allegedly available in 3 different versions + a cassette-version w/ a bonus song (6 minutes of very badly recorded rehearsal noise - don't bother). There are some rumors of a late 7" bootleg version, but that's yet unconfirmed. Any tips are welcomed. I'm also interested in info about the supposed 3rd, really crappy (bootleg?) 12" pressing; the layout, edition etc...

Oh, and I just learned PARABELLUM is Latin for "Into Battle". METAL as fuck! ...Fucking a very metally thing!

* = the "getting the shit kicked out of you"-definition, not the "prancing with Anthrax in the mosh-pit"-version.