Arsenic - Seeds Of Darkness
Baphomet Records - BAPH 124 - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
Baphomet Records owner and Necrophagia mastermind Killjoy is apparently fond of stating that Arsenic are his favourite underground black/death metal band. Killjoy, I take my hat off to you - you are way too fuckin' underground for me. I've never heard of them. No-one I know has ever heard of them. The reason for that could be that nobody except Killjoy is kvlt and tr00 and extreme enough to have heard of them. Yeah, that could be it. Or maybe, just maybe, it could be because their entire recorded output in their four years of existence ('85-'89) consisted of two really badly recorded demos totalling 14 tracks of tuneless, aimless, eardrum-rape that nobody, and I mean NOBODY, in their right mind would ever set through by choice.
The first 8 tracks (presumably the first demo) are so badly recorded that it's impossible to discern any riffs - there's just some skronky noise which is presumably guitar, some drumming that alternates between slow and simplistic and blast, and possibly the worst vocals ever vomited into a dictaphone (I'm taking a guess at the recording equipment here). Every now and again, a solo breaks through the mix. Well, I say solo - I actually mean maybe two or three notes played quickly, out of time and out of tune. Seriously, these guys make Venom and Possessed sound like Dream Theater. The recording quality improves somewhat when you get to 'Souls Lie Screaming' (by which I mean, the guitars go from 'random blarty noise' to 'jar of wasps'), but this only serves to highlight how bad the music is.
To be fair to them, I imagine the level of extremity they were striving for was fairly uncommon back in the day. They're from the Bronx, and presumably it was all Agnostic Front and stuff back then. I don't know. But what I do know is that these guys didn't get further than recording two shitty demos for a reason, and Killjoy can preach about them all he wants, I'm not getting suckered into recommending bullshit just because it's really rare bullshit.
1/10 (UM's Review Rating Scale)
(no websites)
Baphomet Records - BAPH 124 - 2006
By Philip Whitehouse
Baphomet Records owner and Necrophagia mastermind Killjoy is apparently fond of stating that Arsenic are his favourite underground black/death metal band. Killjoy, I take my hat off to you - you are way too fuckin' underground for me. I've never heard of them. No-one I know has ever heard of them. The reason for that could be that nobody except Killjoy is kvlt and tr00 and extreme enough to have heard of them. Yeah, that could be it. Or maybe, just maybe, it could be because their entire recorded output in their four years of existence ('85-'89) consisted of two really badly recorded demos totalling 14 tracks of tuneless, aimless, eardrum-rape that nobody, and I mean NOBODY, in their right mind would ever set through by choice.
The first 8 tracks (presumably the first demo) are so badly recorded that it's impossible to discern any riffs - there's just some skronky noise which is presumably guitar, some drumming that alternates between slow and simplistic and blast, and possibly the worst vocals ever vomited into a dictaphone (I'm taking a guess at the recording equipment here). Every now and again, a solo breaks through the mix. Well, I say solo - I actually mean maybe two or three notes played quickly, out of time and out of tune. Seriously, these guys make Venom and Possessed sound like Dream Theater. The recording quality improves somewhat when you get to 'Souls Lie Screaming' (by which I mean, the guitars go from 'random blarty noise' to 'jar of wasps'), but this only serves to highlight how bad the music is.
To be fair to them, I imagine the level of extremity they were striving for was fairly uncommon back in the day. They're from the Bronx, and presumably it was all Agnostic Front and stuff back then. I don't know. But what I do know is that these guys didn't get further than recording two shitty demos for a reason, and Killjoy can preach about them all he wants, I'm not getting suckered into recommending bullshit just because it's really rare bullshit.
1/10 (UM's Review Rating Scale)
(no websites)
