Ruminations of Debauchery

Occult death metal to the fullest! This band new how to create an atmosphere, that is for certain. The sound quality is objectionable, but seeing as it was 1991/92 at the time of the recording and without the help of a major label, this band did the best they could I am sure. There is everything a good doom/death album should have on it. There are slow parts galore, deep brutal voice, weird muffled sounds, nice melodies, but the thinness of the guitar work takes away form the power this band would otherwise yield. That is basically my only objection to this piece of music (or two pieces, as it were). The songs are pretty long, and there is even some hyper-blasting ala Kataklysm in it as well. The tracks are mostly slow doom/death metal with mid-tempo parts and mostly just double time death/thrash stuff going on, and there is even a solo, quiet out of place but still friggin awesome. The first track also has a bit of orchestral ambience with a violin/cello player ripping it up. The problem is again the production for it obscures the guitars to the extent where the cello is louder than the guitar solo that goes on under it. There is a synth interlude as well, which I found distasteful, but still good. There are weird stop and go riffs, some odd time signatures, and everything to make any metal heads mouth water. Definitely worth checking out.

I love Absu, and because of this I was anxious to find out more about this pre-Absu outfit. They had released some demo/seven inch stuff back in the early days of the death metal explosion, but I was unable to get a hold of it. I recently grabbed this CD on reissue and was pretty baffled by it. Natrually the sound was at demo tape quality (not a bad thing) but the actual music really puzzled me. The first track "Debauchery" reminds one of very early My Dying Bride, slow tempos, violin, obscure atmosphere, the whole bit. It's a long cut, but pretty cool, and blessed with a very distorted guitar sound and deep, rumbling vocals. But shortly afterwards we get hit with several short tracks that feature insanely fast tempos, burping vocals and strange, poetic occult driven lyrics. The tempos are so fast that I could swear the tape was altered to facilitate the speed. I don't know this for sure, but the tinny nature of the drums also provides a clue that some sort of manipulation was used. "Rumination" is another doomy, atmospheric track, while "Reflections Of The Dark" has much better production, sounding like it was recorded live and gives a better impression of what's Magus' true sound might have been like. Add to this whole package a synth outro called "Hexacles" that sounds like it was taped off a video game soundtrack (but meant to be majestic and perhaps evocative of the band's occult ideals). Very strange but cetainly worth hearing, especially if one enjoys obscure death metal along the lines of Mythic, Order From Chaos and Disembowelment.