Rites of the Black Mass

Acheron is one of the Floridian death metal bands from the period of the late '80-the early '90s which tend to be overlooked quite a bit. Of course, there are some fairly understandable reasons some people can't get into Acheron's work, but for me, Rites of the Black Mass is a gem of the early '90s Floridian death metal scene.

Let's start with one of the most common points of contention with this album: the intros. Before every song, there is an intro track written and performed by Peter H. Gilmore, who is the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, although at the time of this recording, he was not. For many people, the album never can really get going because it is interrupted with the intros every song. However, I do enjoy Gilmore's intros and his music in general, but I do get how it can interrupt the flow of the album, and to be fair, I think I might have felt this way a bit as well when I first began listening to Acheron, but it never ruined the band for me. However, it did always seem a bit weird, although at this point, I quite like it.

So that brings us to the actual songs by Acheron. Lyrically, the album goes through the performance of the Black Mass, with the material primarily stemming from the version that can be found in The Satanic Rituals, a book I had already read by time I heard this album. I don't know if this helped my enjoyment of the album or not, but it possibly had some effect.

As far as the riffs go, they are more straight-forward, rather than complicated and busy. This makes the songs pretty memorable, for me. If your tastes lean toward the complicated and uber-technical, then you are not going to likely enjoy this album. The concept album element also works pretty well, for me. As I mentioned above, I had read The Satanic Rituals before I heard this album, as well as The Satanic Bible, so I was well-versed in the subject matter already. That being said, I do not think that you need to have read either book or even have any real interest in that subject in general to enjoy this album. After all, this is music and if you can enjoy and connect with the music, that is really what it is about. Again, I do not know if my connection to the subject matter/album concept has biased me in regard to this album (as well as later Acheron material), but I find that this album manages to balance the extremity with songwriting, something often missing from a lot of modern death metal. The songs are not about showing off and/or trying to be as ridiculously extreme as possible.

The production is nothing really amazing, but it still fits the music. It has a rawness to it without being just plain noisy or abrasive, which was fairly common in those days (especially with demos). For me, the production works, as it is pretty clear, but at the same time, it is not sterile, as many modern albums are.

With all that said, this is an old-fashioned death metal album through and through, to be sure, but then again, I enjoy that. In fact, that kind of thing is some of my favorite music, as that was what was going on in my early teen years and was the kind of thing that really got me excited by music in general..

Listen to the album as a whole, intros included, without thinking of the intros as some obstacle between your ears and the metal portions of the album and if you still don't like it, maybe you never will, but at least you gave it a fair try.