Ocean of Blasphemy

This slab of frenzied old school death metal will never disappoint and was rated best in class by many German fanzines the year of its release. A pure and malevolent creation indeed from a totally unknown Danish band of all places makes this the surprise of the century. These freaks have some warped morbid visions and bring on their unique style of death metal like a cancer. A landmark release from Europe, this legion crush Jehovah while breeding the spawn of a new era in extreme metal. 10 tracks of unmatched hellfire and brimstone describes this pestilence plague of a debut album and is the ultimate incantation from beyond!!!!!

Let’s take a closer look at this piece of abhorrence, the autopsy will reveal many superb layers to this seminal release. Firstly, it was only released on CD and by RRS records which is a totally unknown label IMO. Years later it would finally see a Vinyl release. What they managed to do is commission the black goat himself to work his magic with the sinister cover art. His body of work bound to make your fleshcrawl and we are speaking of none other than the mighty demigod himself, Joe Petagno, who serves us a platter of benediction to wet our darkest desires. What an amazing piece of work for this release. It ranks as one of his all-time best and is the precursor of the nightmare that is to follow once you strike the play button. The only thing I would have changed is to have made the band logo somewhat smaller as is obscures the delectable image somewhat but that’s a minor fucking gripe.

The intro is hilarious. Short and to the point before we start the carnage and you will certainly not find this release comfortable by any means as it is filled to the brim with brutality. If you are a fan of the golden age of death metal then you have just stumbled onto a gift of a release, luck like this happens maybe once in a lifetime. Good luck trying to track down another release of this quality by another unknown band that has this much pestilence in its bite. This right here folks rivals the very best of the best circa 1990-1995. Every song is fantastic and there are no fucking fillers at all. A fucking amazing release this is - merciless to the fault.

The rhythm guitar is what really makes this shine and each war anthem has its own identity. The guitar tone is other worldly as the opener, crest of war roars out of control summoning vomitory reactions as chaos prevails by the spade full for the rest of the album. The absolute highlight riff has to be found on track #7 and I've never heard anything like it in 30 years of extreme metal. Michael Anderson growls through all ten tracks like a man possessed at his very own obituary and it fits this style of Florida based death metal perfectly, one would never guess that these guys are from Europe and releases like this will surely bring on a frigid winter Solstice. Jesper Frost smashes the skins throughout the release and it’s a drum barrage of note with ample variety and timing variations. This band is aligned on every level as they dismember all pretenders to their blasphemic fire throne. This incantation needs to be heard by more metal heads as it’s a wretched spawn of vile intentions.

In closing, Thorium pay homage to Deicide on track #10 with a lethal rendition of the timeless classic titled lunatic of god’s creation and as the disc comes to a close Satan basks in the nocturnal silence of hell eternal and fuck me sideways is he pleased with this nugget of a release. It truly is a masterpiece of unrivaled genius sadly conjured up in 2000, which was the kiss of death being late to the scene. Their sophomore effort also worth looking into and then this band was done and dusted.

Track this one down at any cost. It is un-fucking-believable.

Buy or die!!!

“I hope will find this comfortable”.

This is the hilarious intro to this very good piece of furious death metal. Actually Thorium plays different kinds of death metal, from the American one to the Swedish, always being quite original and catchy. So prepare yourselves to be annihilated by the unexpected blast beats like in “Crest For War” or find more Swedish guitar parts (“Abomination OF God”).

The production is not clean like in Swedish tradition but not even dirty, it’s more obscure and really as heavy as a stone. They achieved the goal of recording very catchy songs with an high dose of brutality. “Crypt Of Chaos” reminded me early Deicide while “Impaled” is more grindish with the endlessly sung refrain. The vocals are great, always growly but comprehensible with very sick peaks.

“Betrayed By God” has all the elements to be considered a true Swedish one, very similar to The Duskfall sound with some excellent, not too exposed melodies. “Countless To Die” is fucking heavy with a panzer intro and lots of stop’n’go. Brutal. “Desecrating The Graves” is pure blasphemy in music; the following “Dawn Of Flames” is pure melodic death metal! Check out the beginning made of tapping melodies on the guitars.

The excellent and faster Deicide cover, “Lunatic Of God Creation”, played with the same malevolence and blasphemy, ends a good death metal album. Recommended for those who are not stuck in a singular death influence. For all tastes, in this genre obviously.