Cul de-Sac

Sweet home Norway sheltered quite a lot of monsters and unsightly creatures in the early-90’s, largely through the black metal wave, the multiple make-up-wearing villains leaving the vampires for their thrash brethren, who wasted no time adding another immortal streak to the undead with two demos in quick succession.

The first one I have no idea how it sounds like, but the one here is easily the best kept secret of the whole Norwegian metal scene. An underground gem to beat all underground gems, this opus offers first-rate progressive thrash of the old school, a multi-faceted masterpiece which will continue to surprise you with each subsequent listen. Big ambition exhibited from the very get-go with the depleting 8-min saga “Claim to Existence”, a major claim at greatness this one, a labyrinthine piece with time and tempo shifts galore that also keeps the headbangers in the vicinity due to the few impetuous riff-rushes. It’s really hard to surpass this claim, not here not anywhere, but the Oriental doomy motifs on “Origin of Fear” are nothing short of spectacular, this more epically executed cut also thriving on weird surreal rhythms, the latter overriding the skeleton on “Chameleon People”, a bewitching riff-mosaic which flirts with both doom again and atonal Mekong Delta-sque arrangements, the virtuoso lead guitar work making circles around the seriously heightened setting. The doom/thrash symbiosis receives another nod on the heavy tumbling but also fairly eccentric amalgam “Mindrot”, before another bout of outlandishness comes served on the short crossover etude “Buy or Die”. Yep, you’ll buy everything these lads throw at you, no kidding, especially “Megalomania”, an astonishing whirlwind of technical vitriolic riffs and urgent fierce skirmishes, with fusion-like tractates and mesmerizing albeit not very logical riff-patterns adding further to the totally arresting musical madness.

Muthafuckin’ great stuff whichever side you look at it, including from the vocal spectre, the man there eliciting a really attached, passionate clean timbre which he never tests exorbitantly, but is always conscious of his singing bravado being on par with his colleagues’ efforts. The thing is that his colleagues aim at the very top, easily overcoming the slightly blurry sound quality with their consummate skills, shooting a piece of musical gorgeousness after another, raising the flag of the good old thrash in the early-90’s so high that if based on musical merits alone their short-time stay on the circuit could have blown the entire black metal trend in their homeland to hell… and back. And they didn’t need to do that with the help of any other practitioner from the thrash circle over there… did someone say Equinox? Who are those?!

Ha ha, no, the mentioned act are equally compelling, but seriously, Salem’s Lot suddenly became a very sought-out location to settle for both humans and vampires alike, cause if this was to be the music to be served there on regular bases then price had no significance whatsoever… those haunted houses over there would go like hot bread. However, before you rush and spend your hard-earned cash for a shack over there, I have to tell you that the band are no longer residing in this area. In fact, they left very shortly after the release of this grand work, but later re-grouped for the foundation of Tonka, another very cool progressive thrash formation; and Omegashift with which they gave a more tangible non-contaminated shape to their doomy infatuations. They also hit the official release stage with both acts, but still nothing can top these early days, when genius and creativity were walking hand in hand, shattering dead ends and carving new paths for other adventurous artists to explore.