Damn, this album surprised me the first time I heard it. Before I heard this and Tol Cormpt Norz Norz Norz, I always thought Impaled Nazarene played Motörhead-esque, melodic black metal, as they make it on All that you fear. When I got hold of the first two albums, my ears were shocked as hell. My ears were bleeding from this explosive mixture of black metal and grindcore. And I listened and listened to both of them albums, and both have really grewn onto me, but this little piece lacked a review so I thought I should do it.
First we'll label the music, which is kinda hard. The band themselves called it Cyber Punk or whatever, and it is an interesting mixture of different influences...The record sounds like Shane Embury joining Burzum, taking the Driller Killer drummer with him, and trying to record De Mysteriis dom Sathanas. To be a bit more serious, this album has got practically everything.
Majestic, epic-sounding riffs? Just check out "The horny and the horned" and Chaosgoat law. Crusty riffs and d-beat? Soul Rape for you. Frantic, crazed grindy madness? Goatized, Coraxo. More standard black metal? Cyberchrist. A drum machine (!) ? Check out the Antichrist War mix, Gott ist Tot.
The vocalist is great, Mr Luttinen alternates between the styles, sometimes being a black metal snarl, sometimes a more growly, death metally/crusty voice, and throwing in some really high pitched shrieks for variation. The guitarists do their job, no soloing is here but that's no problem what so ever. If you want solos, go jack off to some old Dream Theater stuff. This is CyberPunk goddammit. The bass seems to follow the guitars almost all the time, but that doesn't really matter either. Over to the drummer. When he blasts, he's a fucking slaughter machine. When he plays d-beats, he adds some nice double bass rolls and fill-ins and shit, letting some skills shine through. A synthesizer is here as well, but never in the way for rawness. Somehow, Impaled Nazarene manages to "taint" their black metal with a lot of stuff that most people can't stand, yet they do it with tonnes of attitude and with musical perfection, so it's never a problem. Production is great, very clear and trebly. All in all, a fucking great album!
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=aclmXvLFof4&list=RDaclmXvLFof4&start_radio=1
