Acheron - Rebirth: Metamorphosis Into Godhood
Black Lotus Records - BLR/CD055 - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Some drooling halfwit once proposed to me the idea that a band are only as good as their worst track. Soon after that he started claiming Jesus was sending him messages through his X-Box and wearing a cling-film spacesuit, so we stopped hanging out. But that idea came back to me while listening to this album, since it'd be hard to find the worst track on Acheron's latest, reason being, they're all just... well... okay. Not fantastic, not awful. I don't bleed explosively from the ears when the opening strains of 'Church Of One's' charmingly generic anti-God rhetoric filter from the speakers, nor do I feel inclined to prostrate myself at guitarist Michael Estes' feet during the solo at the close of 'Xomaly'. Which is a good thing really, since he just quit the band - something about the 1,000 mile distance between him and the other guys (vocalist/bassist Vincent Crowley and drummer Kyle Severn), apparently, but that never stopped Dave Witte and Chris Dodge collaborating on an album with the entire width of the USA between them (East/West Blast Test, and it's a damned good grindcore album, in case you're wondering)...
The thing is, this is a pretty safe, predictable, and unchallenging platter of blackened death metal. It doesn't smack you about the face with an inverted crucifix, more sort of meekly taps you on the shoulder and goes 'errr... we're still here, you know'. Because Acheron are hailed as being the longest-running Satanic death metal band in existence - they went on a bit of a hiatus for a while there, but they're back, and... well... they're doing exactly what they did before. Gnarly bass growlings, Crowley's vaguely juvenile strangled howls about Satan, chuggy riffs coupled with twiddly solos and bursts of respectably brutal blastbeat riffage - all well and good, all well written, wrapped nicely in a perfectly competent production, played with conviction.
Yet I still find my attention drifting to other things while it's on - like what's going on in Coronation Street. And if you can listen to a death metal album and wonder what's going on in Ken Barlow's life, you know something's got to be wrong. Maybe it's about time Acheron jacked in their formulaic one-part-Venom-one-part-Slayer-stir-and-serve routine and tried something new?
5/10
Acheron Official website
Black Lotus Records website
Black Lotus Records - BLR/CD055 - 2004
By Philip Whitehouse
Some drooling halfwit once proposed to me the idea that a band are only as good as their worst track. Soon after that he started claiming Jesus was sending him messages through his X-Box and wearing a cling-film spacesuit, so we stopped hanging out. But that idea came back to me while listening to this album, since it'd be hard to find the worst track on Acheron's latest, reason being, they're all just... well... okay. Not fantastic, not awful. I don't bleed explosively from the ears when the opening strains of 'Church Of One's' charmingly generic anti-God rhetoric filter from the speakers, nor do I feel inclined to prostrate myself at guitarist Michael Estes' feet during the solo at the close of 'Xomaly'. Which is a good thing really, since he just quit the band - something about the 1,000 mile distance between him and the other guys (vocalist/bassist Vincent Crowley and drummer Kyle Severn), apparently, but that never stopped Dave Witte and Chris Dodge collaborating on an album with the entire width of the USA between them (East/West Blast Test, and it's a damned good grindcore album, in case you're wondering)...
The thing is, this is a pretty safe, predictable, and unchallenging platter of blackened death metal. It doesn't smack you about the face with an inverted crucifix, more sort of meekly taps you on the shoulder and goes 'errr... we're still here, you know'. Because Acheron are hailed as being the longest-running Satanic death metal band in existence - they went on a bit of a hiatus for a while there, but they're back, and... well... they're doing exactly what they did before. Gnarly bass growlings, Crowley's vaguely juvenile strangled howls about Satan, chuggy riffs coupled with twiddly solos and bursts of respectably brutal blastbeat riffage - all well and good, all well written, wrapped nicely in a perfectly competent production, played with conviction.
Yet I still find my attention drifting to other things while it's on - like what's going on in Coronation Street. And if you can listen to a death metal album and wonder what's going on in Ken Barlow's life, you know something's got to be wrong. Maybe it's about time Acheron jacked in their formulaic one-part-Venom-one-part-Slayer-stir-and-serve routine and tried something new?
5/10
Acheron Official website
Black Lotus Records website
