Reencarnación (Col) - "888" LP, 1988

In case any fans of raw death metal were wondering, becoming a librarian requires going to graduate school in which you enroll in many courses that teach you useless theory that has very little to do with the practice of librarianship. One of the first courses that I took, "Human Information Behavior", a group of people in my class did a presentation on the information needs of "outsiders" vs "insiders". For about 45 minutes these individuals talked about the theoretical ins and outs of exactly what an "outsider" is - this term for this purpose was defined as someone who is a part of a 'scene' (for lack of better word) tangentially on the outside and do not have easy access to the same kind of information the members of that 'scene' have. While this definition is rather vague and a little convoluted, it becomes a little easier to see what exactly this is meant when one looks at outsider art or, in particular, outsider music. Outsider art, which outsider music is naturally a subsection of, is any art created by an artist who generally is unaware of any trends and thus any kind of outside influence in their music, whether by choice or not. This generally leads to very strange works, often produced by mentally ill people such as Henry Darger or Wesley Willis.

Its difficult to place exactly where the Colombian metal scene fits into all this. In particular, bands like Parabellum and Reencarnación played a type of music which not only does not resemble anything else coming out of South America, but really nothing that I've heard before. The line between insanity and genius is often fine, and its hard to tell retroactively on what side either band fell on. Trying to label this as a brilliant piece of outsider art, a breathtaking and conceptually complex piece of high art, or just a bunch of talentless kids trying and failing miserably to emulate their Motorhead LPs is a futile attempt, and this sort of music can only be judged on its own terms.

A lot of outsider music due to its strange and often quite literally retarded sounds can produce a great deal of unintentionally hilarious songs. This was my first reaction to hearing "888". I had never heard music this insane before and burst out laughing when the band kicked into high speed in the opening title track. Its hard to describe exactly what this band sounds like. Structurally they play a rather limited range of riffs, generally only 3 - 4 per song at most, almost no soloing, and vocals are delivered in a gruff yet intelligible fashion. However the riffs themselves don't really sound like much of any type of discernable riffs. They have much more in common to the harsh noise anti-music stylings of early Beherit than anything else that was present in the metal scene at the time. The guitars sound horribly out of tune and the guitarist sounds like he is just running his fingers up and down the frets in a seemingly random pattern that is repeated in a riff form. The bass is largely unconcerned with what the guitar player is doing and is playing something else, the drummer is barely keeping the whole show together with a series of sloppy rhythms that would make early Sodom proud, and the Spanish language vocals are spit out at such a rapid pace that initially it sounds like the singer is having some kind of anxiety attack.

Its difficult to pin down any sort of influence in this music. South America, especially Brazil, had a very strong metal scene known for its raw death metal, but as harsh as those bands were, at least they had some semblance of song structure, riffing, and were clearly influenced by the heavier speed/thrash metal bands of the time. Brazil also had a rather large hardcore scene in the early 80s, but Reencarnación sounds like neither. Instead this sounds like a mismatch of sounds randomly pasted together. The whole recording feels very musically "wrong". If there was some kind of handbook that instructed you how to write a proper heavy metal song (ala the KLF), it seems that Reencarnación studied the handbook very carefully and decided to do the exact opposide. The band employs a few noise tracks, out of tune violins, and some truly mindblowing break down parts that sound like nothing a sane human being would write. To further add to the mystery, their countrymen Parabellum, who were producing equally insane and strange music, sounded nothing like this either.

I realize everything I've written so far sounds like it could easily be a negative review, but its not. I absolutely love this band, and this album is easily the best thing they've done. "888" is such a frantic and crazy recording, after the initial shock wore off, the recording clicked very heavily with me and certainly is amongst the best metal albums to come out of South America. Its difficult to call this death metal or black metal, but probably would not be incorrect to say that it falls in some nebulous hole in between the two.

This band has built up such a cult following that "888" has been reissued several times on both CD and vinyl, with the following EP "Acompáñame A La Tumba", another fantastic recording that is slightly thicker sounding and has some of the best cover art to grace any heavy metal 7". For the uninitiated, expecting a rather standard South American black metal recording like "I.N.R.I." or "Bestial Devastation" might be disappointed, but those open to more esoteric forms of death metal should love this. I really can't recommend this recording enough, this is one of those rare gems that encompasses the true essence of what makes being a fan of this kind of music worthwhile.

Poison (Ger) - "Into The Abyss" demo, 1987

Germany arguably did more than any other European country in the 1980s to push the boundaries of extreme music. Sodom's first demos in 1982 were an astoundingly raw and primitive form of musical bashing of which the like was unheard of in heavy metal at the time. Their masterpiece "In the Sign of Evil" would, along with Bathory's first album and Hellhammer's "Apocalyptic Raids" would define the first wave black metal sound. Playing right alongside them were equally as influential bands Destruction and Kreator with their own forms of primitive blackened thrash by way of "Sentence of Death" and "Endless Pain". The German thrash scene would grow into one of Europe's strongest scenes, producing a myriad of bands which on the whole were much heavier than their American counterparts. Orienting towards more of a death metal approach as opposed to the lighter, more mosh-pit oriented structures that plagued the American thrash scene of the late 80s, the Germans produced a wealth of bands which would stand the test of time.

Poison were one of the first thrash bands from Germany. Forming in 1982, the band started off playing a murky, barely listenable form of primitive music which was clearly inspired by Hellhammer. Mirroring the Swiss trio's mid-tempo riffs found more on the "Triumph of Death" and "Death Fiend" demos as opposed to the faster Discharge type songs found on "Apocalyptic Raids", Poison's first demo "Sons of Evil" had the right idea, but ultimately failed in execution. The admirable adoption of cool pseudonyms like "Virgin Slaughter", "Angel of Death", "Witchhammer" and "Incubus Demon", awesome simple song titles ("Black Death", "Reaper", "Demon"), and handdrawn cover artwork of the grim reaper are all signs of what is sure to be a killer recording. Unfortunately at this stage in the band's career, the songwriting skills were fairly clunky and the recording terrible is barely field recorder rehearsal quality, which makes the listening experience rather difficult. The second demo "Bestial Death" had much better sound quality, but the actual songwriting skills hadn't improved too much. "Awakening the Dead" followed in 1987, which was another step in the right direction. "Into the Abyss" came around in 1987, and by this point, the band had drastically changed for the better.

Containing only four tracks in over thirty two minutes, the band had largely scrapped their prior Hellhammer influences and went for a more epic and drawn-out approach to writing music. The riffs themselves were rather simple, but the songwriting had improved to make even the simplest riffs string together effortlessly, with various subtle touches in the forms of slight rhythmic changes, well-placed drum hits and angular guitar leads. The sound quality the band had on this recording had never been better; all the instruments are mixed well and heard perfectly, the guitar tone is extremely dark sounding.

Opening up with a classic line of "Into the abyss I fall..." (also used to open up Darkthrone's first album "Soulside Journey"), the song "Sphynx" nicely sets the tone for the entire recording. Very dark and occult sounding black metal. Poison adopted a rather Lovecraftian slant to their lyrics, and this carries over into the music as well. "Into the Abyss" is one of the few recordings I've heard that are able to truly capture the weird, otherworldly vibe of Lovecraft's writings. This odd atmosphere is one of the demo's strongest points, and is part of the reason why this has always been a cult record for as long as I've been listening to this kind of music.

For a while this recording was difficult to track down. The album was released on vinyl in 1993 (the cover shown on the right with the upside down cross made up of skulls incased in triangles - a very cool cover if you ask me), and since then has been bootlegged several times until the recent Iron Pegasus compilation "Further Down the Abyss", which includes "Into the Abyss" in its entirety, as well as several rehearsal, live and various other demo tracks. None of the previous three demos are included in their entirety, which is rather disappointing as I quite like the "Bestial Death" demo, but its not a huge loss considering how much better "Into the Abyss" is than the rest of their catalog.

Poison never really achieved the recognition that they deserved, and split up in 1987. "Virgin Slaughter" would later form the band R.U. Dead?, which aside from having one of the worst names of all time, carried on the Poison legacy through the 90s, moving in the same musical vein as "Into the Abyss" with varying degrees of musical success. Most of this material is compiled on the "Completely Dead" CD, and is certainly worth tracking down. "Into the Abyss", however, is an absolutely essential recording, which to me is the best metal to come out of Germany. While Kreator and Sodom were certainly much more influential in the long run, none of their works were as well composed or performed as Poison's masterpiece. A true classic.

Mayhem (Hun) - 1989 demo

Sometimes choosing the wrong name can make what would already been an obscure recording even more obscure. By the time that 1989 had rolled around, there were quite a few bands who would bear the moniker of Mayhem who had various degrees of success; at least two bands from the United States, a speed metal band with a track on a New Renaissance compilation and the legendary hardcore band who would later change their name to NYC Mayhem, a band from Brazil who would contribute to the legendary second entry in the Warfare Noise compilation series, four demo only bands from continental europe (Finland, Italy, and two from Germany), a UK82 band who did a 7" on Riot City in 1982, as well as the Norwegian band who would gain international fame and infamy in the early 90s both from a string of foundational black metal records and the unusual circumstances surrounding the deaths of two of their members. Needless to say, its rather easy to see how this Hungarian band might have gotten lost in the shuffle; the fact that they come from behind the Iron Curtain probably didn't help matters too much either.

This particular Mayhem weren't around for a very long time and represent a small blip on the somewhat small Hungarian late 80s death/black metal scene. During their short period of existence, the band cut two demo tapes as well as a few rehearsal and live tracks floating around. The demo from 1989 is the first one, and contains a rather lengthy running time of over 30 minutes (almost 45 minutes if one were to count the bonus rehearsal tracks distributed with the recording), which more than makes up for the fact that the band didn't really do too much else.

Musically the band plays in a fairly standard black/death style that was fairly common at that time in Europe. While their Hungarian contemporaries such as Tormentor, Fantom or Angel Reaper were pushing the envelope with more extreme music, Mayhem's brand of black metal was rooted more in European speed/thrash, and sounds a bit more like it was released in 1985 as opposed to 1989. As this is a cheaply recorded demo tape, the sound is naturally rather thin, leaning more towards the treble end.

While by no means a musically complex recording, the band play a bit more than the average three-chord riffs that many of their peers were doing. Many of the songs have a bit of melody to them, and even while the musicianship may be a little sloppy getting the riffs across, the band makes sure to hit the right notes at the right time. On one of their live tapes they do a cover of Sodom's "Sepulchral Voice", and their seminal album "Obsessed by Cruelty" might not be a bad point of comparison for the music played on this tape; vocals are delivered in a similar harsh snarl (filtered through the incomprehensible language that is Hungarian, of course) on top of a series of rather catchy and primitive thrash riffs.

One thing that I've always found interesting and desirable about Eastern European bands that play this kind of music is a majority of them invoke a certain occult atmosphere; one of witches, counts, ancient spellbooks, rusty torture devices, that sort of thing. This band is no different, and that same strange feeling runs very strongly through these tracks, without the use of any keyboards, female vocals or intro noises to add a masking gimmick to cover up for the actual music itself. Fans of this style will surely not be disappointed with this demo, and while it is not the best or most innovative recording in this genre, it is certainly competent enough and worthy to anyone interested in the goings on of Eastern European black metal.