Sinister "Hate" CD

Without a doubt among my top 10 old school death metal albums, this was one of the albums I grew up with. This album can best be noted for its atmosphere. It conjures up an entire world for the listeners pleasure, and what a world that is!
The album begins with the sounds of a ritual being performed at some small wooden building, with the floors cracking and chanting and ritual music in the background, and the then singer, van Mastrigt, screaming verses is Sumerian. After that all hell breaks loose as the title track ‘Awaiting the Absu’ comes on, and from then on you are tossed into a malevolent pit of death metal carnage. All of the tracks are awesome. In fact all of the riffs in all of the tracks are awesome. This is the best work Sinister has ever produced, ever. I can link it in greatness to Pestilence, Magus, etc, it is simply one of the best pieces of music made.
The album sounds like it is a ritual being performed live, it is entirely tight, no slips or mistakes, everything is perfectly played, everything accentuates everything else, the entire thing is so powerful, you almost feel like they did invoke the spirit of some unnamed elder gods to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting listener. It sounds like it is recorded live, and the sound is also really raw and grimy enhancing the ritualistic nocturnal feeling the album emanates.
The instrumentation is also fucking superb. The dual guitars are either playing the same thing and making it sound like one incredibly powerful guitar is playing, or they play nicely off each other, making it again sound like a single instrument. The bass is nice and almost entirely undistorted, and sounds oozing and obscure. The drums are recorded so nicely, I have rarely heard drums sound so brutal and clear without triggers, and retain all of the warm and organic overtones of the analog recordings. He plays a lot of blast beats and a lot of double bass, but he can also groove and stay in the background, he does not overpower the beautiful guitar work, and does not take anything away from the recording because of his skill, he does the hardest thing of all; to add to the music and accentuate it without dominating it. Especially in extreme metal, this is almost unheard of.
And the there are the vocals. Rough sounding yelling in a frequency that is so low, and yet not guttural, it will make your brain rattle. His voice radiates power, and the lyrics back this up immensely. The lyrics are obscure and occult themed, having to do with Satanism for the most part, and the lore of the Babylonians for the lesser part, mixing the two pretty well. Some of the most Satanic death metal out there lyrically, describing the battle of Armageddon with Satan rising as victor, rituals and blood sacrifice, darkness and death. It is an excellent album in every sense, truly worth every penny, buy or fucking die!

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