Italy’s Sadist were a lockdown find, an absolute gem of mature stage death metal. Their debut ‘Above the Light’ released in 1993 flirts with the sillier end of progressive metal, but confidently traverses this dangerous – in terms of its flirtation with bad taste – territory thanks to its ability to integrate imaginatively straightforward riffing with neoclassical flair.
Things got weird on 1995’s ‘Tribe’ however. As is often the case, my remarks on this album require some caveats. I’m a big believer in the objectivity of good taste as an aspiration if not in practice. Despite what the online anti-gatekeeping narrative would have you believe, music is not a free for all. The “experimental” prefix in this context is usually just a sleight of hand used by people who believe non-sensical music and eclecticism in the extreme are replacements for a personality. In reality they are engaging in nothing more than another iteration of the hyper configurability of modern consumerism. From the perspective of the artist, gradations of experimentation usually only work under very specific circumstances and only in capable hands.
With that of way, it should be noted that ‘Tribe’ is straight up not for everyone. Unapologetically proggy, unfocused, lacking any momentum, coherence, or brevity. Yet for all the shameless freeform play unleashed across ‘Tribe’, it is delivered with horribly sterile production, dated synth tones even by mid-90s standard, bombastically synthetic drums, and horrendously raspy vocals that belong nowhere near a death metal album, delivered by one time hire Zanna. The closest parallel would be something like Pestilence’s ‘Spheres’ in terms of the keyboard driven death metal ancestry of Watchtower.
But Sadist are so brazen in breaking the unwritten lore of good taste that one can’t look away. Guitars engage in a constant struggle with the abrasive keyboards for lead supremacy. Out of this arms race comes a recapitulation of Sadist’s neoclassical flair, alongside explicitly modernist tonal deviations. Presented in line with that peripheral 90s preoccupation with environmentalism and attempts to grapple with the – at the time pretty fresh – consequences of globalisation. It’s every bit as cheesy and unlistenable as this description suggests, but ‘Tribe’ belongs in the cannon of mature death metal that sprouted all too briefly from roughly 1993 to the turn of century.
Speaking of turn of the century, Finland’s Adramelech are a good example of how for a short time continuity and consolidation was achieved in the late 90s, in defiance of the accepted wisdom that metal was generally reaching its ultimate nadir during this period. Part continuity Demigod, part brutalist Demilich (especially on the 1996 debut ‘Psychostasia’), Adramelech normalise the barbaric surrealism of the early Finnish style, taming it into a beast as knowable as it is re-listenable.
1999’s ‘Pure Blood Doom’ is perhaps as direct as this brand of Finnish death metal became. That being said, it drips with that uncannily grim atmosphere perfected by Demigod on ‘Slumber of Sullen Eyes’. But here, the abstract aspirations are blunted somewhat for the sake of accessible grooves, linear melodicism, and clear, rhythmic regularity.
Similar to Morbid Angel, Adramalech repeat riffs in reliable blocks divisible by four, but within each predictable cycle they engender a lawless chaos, moments pregnant with mechanical possibility. Anticipation of each repetition does not degrade the exhilaration one feels between each measure. Tracks like ‘Abomination 459’ meanders between two reliably repeated refrains, only reaching a sense of variation and – by extension – resolution with a repurposed heavy metal riff to bring a sense of finality to close the track. But smuggled within this basic framework are covert variations such as off kilter drum fills or modest harmonic material that recast familiar riffs in a new light. Vocals are clear, distinct, almost commanding in the degree of control exercised, playing a key role in squeezing every ounce of juice out of each riff.
To wash off from the vulgar excesses of musicality indulged in by Sadist or the bluntly scheduled riff regimen of Adramalech, Switzerland’s Mordor make for a useful palate cleanser. This wonderful oddity of early 90s avant-garde funeral-doom-cum-dungeon-synth have no regard for the nuances of structure or the artistry buried within a mastery of rudimentary techniques. This is composition by vignette, a series of wonderful suggestions finding their profundity not just through the unapologetically quirky delivery, the hollow, atmospheric darkness, or the eccentric theatricality of the vocals, but through moments of astounding revelation that would leave us incredulous were it not for the sheer guile of the delivery.
Following 1990’s explicitly dark ambient ‘Odes’, 1992’s ‘Csejthe’ is as good a place to start as any with this project. The twenty minute opener ‘Bloody Countess’ is really just an unconnected series of experimentations which span genres, styles, and moods. Elements of early industrial bleed through the cracks thanks to the tentative, stop/start drum track mirroring the oppressive decaying echoes reverberating around labyrinthine stone structures. Other samples and patches are put to percussive use in a manner lifted from 80s industrial from Depeche Mode to Test Dept. Distorted vocals emanate from all directions, sometimes haunting death growls, sometimes baritone chants or spoken word narratives. These engage in conversation with guitars that veer from half formed riffs, to jagged chunks of noise, to searingly melodic turns lifted from gothic rock.
Knitting these looser elements together are fragments of what would now be considered dungeon synth or eccentric funeral doom. Indeed, tracking the drone DNA within this demo, through to Thergothon and early Skepticism and Esoteric, one laments that funeral doom was hijacked as a slog of overly emotive contrived catharsis in more recent years thanks to the ministrations of Ahab and indeed later Esoteric.
Finally, one would be remiss not to mention the dungeon synth of it all. Of course ‘Csejthe’ predates the use of the term or the solidification of the style by the turn of the century. But listening now it is apparent how formative the tiny pocket of ambient avant-garde metal that Mordor occupied was to the formation of this micro genre. Mordor delight in structural nihilism, preferring instead to create an uncanny darkness via the contrast of empty silence with sharp guitar refrains or keyboard lines. No wash of synth strings, waves of guitar noise, or liberal reverb. The mix is sparse, the keyboards cheap and staccato, the guitars, when they do appear, are surprisingly tight even when delivering abrasive atonal screeches, with riffs being almost incidental to the overarching preference for mood music. The programmed drums are unapologetically synthetic.
Yet a case could be made for Mordor outdoing the majority of medieval fantasy ambient in their ability to create a liminal, haunting experience that feels like something out of a dream. Half formed, unrealised, captivating but just beyond our reach.
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