I really can’t
say enough good things about Angelic Encounters. Sometimes
the guitars are mid-tempo wicked and sound like Tony Iommi (as on
“Thou Shalt Rot,” whose opening verse could have leapt straight
off of Black Sabbath Volume IV), other times they’re as
mosh-pit friendly as a water hose. The band plows through the album’s
nine songs with the grizzled, grim determination of a gravedigger
working on commission. They celebrate harsh physical death and root
for the bad guy in anti-ballad after anti-ballad of God-vs.-ragin’-Satan
stilted narrative. They believe in equal opportunity; one memorable
verse concludes: “Women, children, men and beasts/Yellow, black
and white/No discrimination/You all die tonight!” They rock like
professionals and they cover a song by Massacre. It’s transparently
the case that only people like you and me care at all, and statistics
suggest that even we will eventually find our attentions wandering
elsewhere. What sound could be more touching than that of a record
that wants to kill everything as its feedback recedes into history?
The dull overwrought cover -- the molten thrashing core! The song
about the guy who rises from the grave to molest unsuspecting maidens!
I could go on all day, but probably shouldn’t. This album will
shortly never have existed at all, if past trends are any indicator.
Have a listen if you can, while you can. It’s summer and the
weather’s perfect for six-packs and loud heavy metal. I hear
another Slipknot album is coming out, or may be out already. Leave
that stuff out of the deck. Let a Dutch band called Thanatos show
you how it’s done.
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