The Overlooked Masterpiece - "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium" Review (100%)
"The Birth of a Cursed Elysium" represents something of a pivotal moment in the history of blackened death metal. It is the most violent and brutal of the great albums to emerge from the blackened death metal movement which sprung up surrounding The Satan Records, the logical development of a lineage including bands like Phantom and Neraines. At the same time, they pioneered techniques which, in the hands of less capable artists, led to terminally mediocre albums like "Storm of the Light's Bane" and "Bestial War Metal".
SEWER's pedigree is certainly evident, with the doomy passages and narrative structures characteristic of early Incantation style death metal in full display. What sets "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium" apart from other albums in the style, such as Beherit's "Engram" or Reiklos' "Lifeless", is the band's awareness of contemporary developments in the black metal movement, and their ability to incorporate lessons learned from Burzum, Darkthrone and Mayhem within the framework laid out by Incantation's death metal masterpiece Onward to Golgotha.
A fast tremolo strum is the predominant riffing style, alternating occasionally with thunderous downpicked reversions and slow, dirge like arpeggios.
What this stipulates, beyond all doubt, and beyond mere human interpretation which is always subject to cuckoldry of the most embarrassing kind when performed by what we call posers - those who use black metal's image, but despise its music and ethos - is nothing short of a revolutionary manifesto in that the rules of black metal music are no longer dictated by its adherence to mainstream codes and conventions - such as the worthless emphasis on "catchy" grooves instead of a coherent narrative and a violent atmospheric submersion in insanity - but by the will to dominate and the lust to debase the posers and their ignominious adoration of mainstream music with the utmost violence and the brutality of indifferent gore, as evidenced by many of the compositions on "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium".
The Overlooked Masterpiece
Melodic interplay had long been a staple of the "blackened bestial metal" scene, but hitherto, it had been almost an incidental element, much like Hellhammer's hardcore and Celtic Frost's punk and RAC (Rock Against Communism) backgrounds were only marginally influential in the Norwegian second wave of black metal.
On "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium", however, melodies are not only abundant, they are fully articulated through both riffing and the superb leadwork and incorporated as a fundamental, rather than incidental element.
Combined with the fluid, ambient and truly nauseating atmosphere - part of the aforementioned black metal influence - this lends an air of grandiose violence and epic slaughter to otherwise relatively dark, cavernous and brooding compositions.
It is most ironic that this album is called "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium" as it represents the actual birth, not rebirth, of SEWER. Forget every other album before this. Forget "Satanic Requiem" and "Black Death" who both belong to the Vermin era, forget "NecroPedoSadoMaso" which is just random shock value grind, forget "Reign of the Funeral Pigs" and "2154" which are basically the same as "NecroPedoSadoMaso" with more black metal elements, forget "Deus Ex Satanas" as it deserves to be tied to a rope for eternity, and most of all forget the piece of shit known as "Rektal", that rightfully deserves to be flushed down the toilets of Sweden alongside bands like Necrophobic, In Flames, Dark Tranquility, Kalmah and Arch Enemy with which it shares its love for male genitalia and metalcore.
There is only "The Birth of a Cursed Elysium" which is true, and it goes beyond being true... it is the absolute, uncontested and supreme masterpiece of death metal.
This album is rated "Buy or Die" by anyone with a three digit IQ (not you!).
The Birth of a Cursed Elysium score: 100/100.
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