LP jacket with 4 mm spine, printed on 350 gsm cardboard with black-flooded interior printing
▫️ Insert printed on 300 gsm offset paper Two A2 posters printed on 300 gsm paper in Black vinyl
Reissue of the split single originally released by Kiss Of Shame Records now released 12” EP format, under the sign of Down With The Most High.
First major release for two blackened death metal bands from Madrid, the self-titled split is a showcase of the most evil Satanic musical blasphemy this side of 400 years of the Holy Inquisition. Proclamation step up first with their two songs "Sabbat of Vengeance" and "Golgotha Impalation". With titles such as these, the songs had better be good, guys.
After a very brief introduction in which they appear to crawl out of a swamp, Proclamation launch straight into their brand of filthy buzzing and rather trash-tin death metal with a lot of swamp-monster groans, growls and guttural roars. A deranged lead guitar solo soars madly up and down the scale at one point in the music while the rhythm section bangs and lurches around at runaway speed. I'm not quite sure where one song ended and the other one began but the overall impression is that the two songs together were more like a bizarre religious ritual during which the celebrants disputed and bickered over the wretched offerings to their god. The atmosphere is very secretive and black, and the hellish evil aspect of it was not that much in evidence. Parts of the music seemed quite comic actually.
Time for Teitanblood to step up with "Necrosemen" and "Black Pasch (Carnivore Eucharist)", their odes to Roman Catholic Christianity and its main beliefs. Teitanblood's effort is much more substantial than their fellow Satanic Spaniards with positively inhuman and crunchy vocals and an even more demented style of filth-encrusted black / death metal. Of the two songs "Black Pasch ..." is the longer and more devilish with a deep vocal, a genuinely malevolent and demonic metal ambience. From the unearthly and fiendish introduction with the strange horn siren solo to the final explosion, the relentless onslaught is driven by an energy powered by the band members' disdain for the reverence and awe attached to the Christian Eucharist by the Catholic Church over the centuries. The speedy yet steady music, anchored by a constant rhythm, allows plenty of space for a dark, suffocating blanket of an atmosphere. "Necrosemen" is more frantic than evil with reverbed guttural vocals and a cymbal-heavy rhythm that mesmerises with a never-ending tinny shimmer.
Teitanblood seem more assured and confident than Proclamation but both bands are emphasising different approaches to creating and playing evil black / death metal. With Proclamation, the focus is on celebrating Baphomet and taking over the Christian sacred grounds and vestments to glorify the dark one's triumph; Teitanblood on the other hand mock the rituals and beliefs of Christianity by drawing out the shadows behind the concepts of the Virgin Mary and Communion. The opposite of the Virgin Mary who conceives by ear is the polluted prostitute whose child could have been fathered by any rapist and is despised by everyone; the opposite of Holy Communion, yet always implicit in its celebration, is cannibalism and the drinking of bodily fluids and excreta. Perhaps for this reason Teitanblood's effort has more substance and righteous fury: the power behind it is the power of freedom from knowing the Church is only an earthly institution whose power is a negative one, based on psychological manipulation, lies and fear. Compared to this, Proclamation's contribution, for all the enthusiasm and relish the band brings, seems more shallow, less focused and a bit childish.
Even the artwork seems to stress the musical differences between the two bands: Proclamation's side is all exuberant and celebratory while Teitanblood's part looks quite orderly and deliberate with plenty of black space that seems to stretch into infinity. I bet those skeletons have good manners too and won't throw blood all over the tablecloth even though they're supposed to do that in their inversion of the Eucharist.
Sample:
youtube.com/watch?v=UvDsAQez9Sg&list=RDUvDsAQez9Sg&start_radio=1
