Root of All Evil, 2003
- Trampled Underfoot
- The Essence of Torture
- Bloodthirst and Misanthropy
- The Blessing of Death
- Final Reckoning
- An Evil So Vile
- Bleeding the Human Worms
- Catalyst of the End Times
- Of Barbarism and Wolves
- Tormentor (KREATOR cover)
A couple of years ago, I reviewed TERATISM's first full-length offering Invocatum Furae Diabolis, and gave it a less than flattering 6/10 score, being wholly unimpressed with its generic nature. "That's that, the last I will hear from TERATISM," I thought, but a few months ago a member of the band e-mailed me, saying that he had read my review, and -- in a truly respectable gesture -- was willing to send me a copy of their new, in his opinion much improved album The Blessing of Death to see whether I would like this better. Said and done, the album came in my mail, and after some listens, I can say that yes, without doubt, this is an improvement.
On the surface, this isn't exactly miles away from its predecessor. The vocals sound pretty much the same, and the production is still fairly muffled -- not raw in the good sense; clear, but lacks bite. The song- and riffwriting, though, has been considerably improved. The minimalistic, DARKTHRONE-ish riffs that sometimes appeared on the debut have been reduced in number, in favour of both an occasionally more death metal-tinged, heavy approach (intro riff to "Of Barbarism and Wolves," for example) and a Scandinavian style of arpeggio riffing not unlike bands like WATAIN (and naturally then, by extension, De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas) that I am rather fond of -- songs such as "The Essence of Torture" and the title track use these techniques, and end up being some of the best ones on the album -- certainly far better than anything on the debut.
That said, TERATISM still seems rather faceless amongst the hordes of BM bands active today. While the competence level of both writing and performing their art of choice has been upped considerably, there is still the lack of anything which really would make me say "hey, this must be TERATISM" if blind-tested with a 15 second clip from the middle of any given song. In the vastly overpopulated "scene" of today, having a clear identity is a must, and so, while I will give this a nod of approval and another point or so for improving significantly upon the previous album, I still cannot really recommend TERATISM to the average BM fan on their own merits -- for example, I'd much rather listen to WATAIN's Casus Luciferi LP than this -- there are just far more memorable and original albums out there. Can't hurt to try and listen to a song or two off this, though, you might see something I don't.
(Oh, and the KREATOR cover is heaps o' fun. Though TOOOR-MENTAAAH! has been covered approximately 2,342,642 times before, it's a killer song, and this blastbeat-ridden version is pretty neat -- besides, any band paying tribute to KREATOR can't be bad!)
Rating: 7.3/10
