Tracks 1-5 recorded at Winterblut Studio, Germany in January, 2003.
Track 6 recorded at BS1, Philadelphia, during late 2010.
Comes in a standard jewel case.
The name for this release is derived from the main character of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. Tracks 1, 3 and 5 are interludes, featuring monologues by Patrick Bateman, taken from the 2000 film of the same name.
This reissue features a newly recorded bonus track in a (d)evolution of the spirit of the original recording, as well as new packaging and liner notes from N. Imperial.
Quotation in the liner notes reads:
"This recording is dedicated to the spirit of greed and decadence that resides in every human. No rehearsal, no writing, just the captured spirit that "American Psycho" awoke in us."
Krieg, another strong enforcer of the USBM scene during the cusp of the second to third wave, Lord Imperial & Co. have always strived pushing the limit of extremity, mercilessness and psychosis that makes the pale skeleton of black metal in the mentoring roots of the European forbearers.
Patrick Bateman, both the main character of a psychopath in Bret Easton Ellis’ literary masterpiece – “American Psycho” – and Krieg’s fourth EP to date is the embodiment of every shadowed spirit of evil in man.
The EP is very short, blatant, and unforgiving in its visceral delivery. Clocking in at just about fourteen-and-a-half minutes, this album is actually only two songs. The first, third and fifth tracks are actually interludes of sound clips taken from the movie based on the aforementioned novel – the creepy voice of actor Christian Bale. Both actual tracks burst instantaneously between each interlude with no room for rest, an aural suffocation of quadruple-thick bass, distorting mid-range and shattering treble. The vocals by Imperial are rather very throaty, due to the sensitively loud volume overreaching its threshold and clipping at times - all instruments fighting together to fit into the mix, but that’s okay because it works perfectly in enforcing the violence and sadistic lust that this album captures in thematic atmosphere. In fact, this song material is surprising improvised – not an easily achieved feat, yet again, Imperial ingeniously creates the mental landscape for the journey into the mind of a psychopathic serial killer.
I get the most gruesome, chaotic, violence, frenzied visions and thoughts as I listen to the blisteringly fast buzzes of the guitars, the throbbing hums of the bass and the rumbling, crumbling and tumbling thunder cracks of the drums – the visions of Bateman slaughtering his next victim, day or night. All topped off by some of the most frightening screams on the least hint of rest between the instruments.
Krieg have accomplished yet another defiant landmark in the realm of musical expectations for black metal. The liner notes speak for themselves most accurately – the music in the spirit of greed, decadence and disgust that resides in every man…
…The soundtrack of a psychopath…
Sample:
