Hate

Wow, this is so much different from Rotting, the only other Sarcofago album I have as of this writing. On Rotting, Sarcofago played a sort of Black/Thrash combo, sounding like bands like Bathory, Venom and Sepultura at times (Sepultura isn’t too suprising since Antichrist used to be in Sepultura). Here the music is still kind of a combo of Black and Thrash (though slightly moreso the former than the latter), but there’s a drum machine thrown in, speeding up the songs greatly (not that they weren’t fast before). The drum machine is mixed in pretty high and I imagine could get annoying to some people, but I personally like it a lot. It gives the songs an extremely intense, rushing feel. The production is also much clearer (though this might be because I have the remastered version of Hate and the original version of Rotting), though it doesn’t sap the power from the music itself. I’d say that the production and drum machine make this sound similar to Dimmu Borgir’s Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, although of course the music in this is more tr00, heh.

There’re basically two main kinds of songs here. There’re the all-out assaults of blastbeating Black Metal like in Satanic Terrorism, and the slower-to-midpaced songs like Orgy Of Flies, with bits of Thrash integrated into both. One definite highlight I have to name is the title track, which begins with about 12 seconds of piano playing, and just about 2 lines of an extremely happy man and woman singing about Jesus. You then hear a burp, and the man and woman and running and screaming as Sarcofago invade the place. It’s kind of over the top, but the end result is pretty kickass. A couple other notable songs are The God’s Faeces (with an insanely catchy intro riff) and Rhabdovirus (The Pitbull's Curse) [with an insanely catchy Thrash break at the 1:22 mark]. In fact, most of this album is pretty catchy, while not sounding watered-down in any way. I have to add on more points for that.

Sarcofago’s lyrics have never been that intelligent, but they fit the songs well and are amusing to read. The vocals are pretty much standard Black Metal screams, though at times sounding inspired by Pleasure To Kill-era Mille Petrozza. The guitar tone is not extremely distorted, although it still carries an evil aura. Like in most Metal records, the bass isn’t that significant. I don’t recall ever hearing it, though it might be audible. Guitar solos aren’t a main part of the songs here, but when they do appear they sound like normal Thrash solos, though still solid. The booklet is kind of simple, although I would much rather have a simple, easy to read booklet than a booklet that tries to be all fancy and ends up just being a pain in the ass, with the text hard to read and all. In comparison, the band photo is pretty damn unique. It shows two members of Sarcofago with corpsepaint and hoods on. The image looks faded and yellowed, and the band looks like Black Metal monks or something! Definitely a huge contrast from Sarcofago’s earlier band photos.

So should you get this? If you don’t mind the idea of a well-produced Black Metal album with a drum machine, then fuck yes. This album doesn’t drag, and none of the actual songs are filler, although you might feel compelled to skip the outro track (which is just the drum machine going faster and faster, then slower again at the end while you hear various moans and other sound effects). So if you come across this on Ebay or in a used CD shelf somewhere (and you don’t mind the previously mentioned elements of the album), then I highly recommend this.