Occult
Elegy for the Weak
8.2
So what's the fucking deal?
Writing and recording a work of metal is more often than not a deliberate effort to please and outdo, to shock or pioneer. People don't start movements by trying to.
I for one could give a flying shit about how technical Cryptopsy are or how many time changes the new Borknagar album possesses (That's not to say I dislike either of those bands). My point: playing shit that's layered with 8 harmonies at 754359 bpm does not make you *METAL*.
So here we are, Occult. One band from the Netherlands who have made their career by doing exactly what they should; playing the music they love. Elegy for the Weak is the most uncontroversial, no bullshit thrash metal you can get your hands on, and whether they're breaking ground here should be irrelevant to all of you. This is a damned good band, and one who fulfill their inherent purpose: To purvey the most enjoyable, high quality thrash they can offer.
The setting: Pure hatred from minute one. "Disturbing the Dead", the album's opener seeps with furious riffs, and collective aggression while chants of Necromancer! Decapitator! Desecrator! Scream beautifully over precision war-drums and moves like an endless Panzer division with an attitude problem. I would say the production is a little bit too shiny for a thrash album, but there are no egos colliding and every part of the band is highly audible, a nice job by Andy Classen.
The lyrical content of Elegy of the Weak goes straight to my heart. None of this crap about 'Spiral Generators' and 'Neo-Wolves' just plain old:
Enter the Realm of the Messiah, receive the revelation of hate*
The coming apocalypse* we are here to celebrate.
Now picture these primitive antichristian apocalypse lyrics erupting from the gullet of a rampant Netherlander who sounds delightfully similar to Tom Angelripper, but calls himself only 'Maurice'. What is already sick, becomes putrefying with modern touches... One thing you will definitely notice about Occult is their fearless use of more extreme drumming, wild double kicking makes a big impression on tracks like "Nocturnal Predator" and "Slaughtering the Pigs".
What makes this album brilliant is not musical ability or complex songs, it's attitude. John Petrucci may be a better guitarist than Jeff Hanneman, but the fact is Slayer write songs, and if liking songs is something that people consider ridiculous now, then I'll happily stay here in my little thrash time-warp and wait hopelessly for a Dark Angel reunion.
And in the spirit of my previous ravings, I'll end this review with some simple, 'never mind the bollocks' advice: Don't buy crap. Buy Occult.
