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I
know I had all these rules in place in order to keep
some sort of order regarding the releases I cover in the
zine, but fuck it. Rules were made to be broken, right?
In any case, it is not like I am going to start
reviewing albums that were released in 2002 as if they
had been released last week. Well, maybe if the record
is totally shitty and therefore at least grants some
sort of mocking coverage, then yeah.
I have
covered a few releases from the German label Black Hate and so
far I have liked it all. Beyond the music, their releases have
all come in really neat presentations. Shitiness shall not be an
excuse. Even when you are going for the whole lo fi angle, bands
shall at least put some effort in the way their albums look.
France’s Drastus knows this so he hooked up with Black Hate who
along with Flamme Noire records bankrolled Taphos, his
first EP.
There is
nothing crazy about the presentation, except that I got the
vinyl version and it’s all well, of course big and really black
and well, the cover is nothing out of this world. The logo is
pretty straightforward too which come to think of it, may mean
that Drastus doesn’t care about the look and image at fucking
all.
Musically,
there are some attempts at originality. I particularly dig the
echo-y guitars in the second half of the first side and then the
ambient part in what I think is “Columns of Decline Part 2”. The
atonality achieved serves a nice contrast, plus the eeriness and
passages between the heavy make Taphos a bit of a trip.
The rest of
the music, the full on black metal side, is pretty standard
though. Blurry and hyper fast, Drastus doesn’t embellish his
metal when in full bloom. Instead, once you get past the
regimental opening and if you skip the ‘art’ in between, this
one man show keeps the shit raw and straight forward. His riffs
are layered and you get two sides with that; the typically metal riffage along with the noisier more angular and detuned playing.
It’s done nicely and it was a newer concept when Taphos came out
(1986).
I could swear there is a drum machine set to On here,
but the sleeve provides no credits and Metal Archives lists a
depressed dude named Sad as the drummer. If so, he is a precise
motherfucker. He is also about the busiest drummer I have ever
heard.
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