I'm sorry. I tried to pick a band from another country but it's just so overwhelming! I once again succumbed to my tenebrous affliction for Swedish metal. I am drawn to it like Courtney Love to cheap heroin. I stand helpless before the majestic pull of the music that this land produces. Indeed, can you blame me? This country pays people benefits for heavy metal addiction, pays bands to hit the studio and presumably, is a country where you can pull a bystander from a bus stop and get him to deliver a raging vocal performance on a death metal album.

Kaamos' second studio full length Lvcifer Rising is yet another deathrashing lesson in the macabre art of Swedish death metal. The members of Kaamos themselves are no new entrants into Swedeath, what with Karl Envall (bass/vocals) and Cristofer "Chris Piss" Barkensjö (drums) already having graced the ranks of one of the best old school sounding death metal bands in the world today, Repugnant (NOSFERAATTOOO..INSIIIIIIIIDE OV YOOOOOO) and guitarist Nicklas Ericksson having wielded his six string mightily as part of the Swedish thrash movement on Serpent Obscene. Kaamos' self titled first full length played no small role in the resurgence of traditional Swedeath in the post-Sunlight Studios era, along with bands like Verminous and ofcourse, Repugnant. Lvcifer Rising, then, had to be positively ballcrushing in order to dethrone an album as intense as their debut.I'm quite happy to report that this has been achieved, and quite convincingly at that.

Lvcifer Rising is certainly influenced to a large extent by Swedeath greats of the Sunlight Studios era such as Entombed, Dismember and Grave but note that I say "influenced". The music certainly pays homage to these bands but in no way ends up sounding derivative or contrived at any point. The music on order here is fervent, impassioned, crushingly heavy anti-christian death metal. There are all the hallmarks of a superb death metal record; monumentally heavy riffs, drums that comply with requirements that range the spectrum between slow, doom-ish tempo to hyper (and I mean HYYYPAAAAAARRR!!) blast beats, absolutely SCORCHING vocal delivery and ofcourse, good old Christ bashing, blasphemous lyrical work. The amazing thing is that the album maintains a blazing level of intensity throughout, never going through a trough as such. Theriomorphic Pandaemonium begins with a deceptively mid paced riff, going on to revel in a veritable hailstorm of blastbeats, sledgehammer riffs, screeching leads and by the time it ends, the listener is befuddled into mute submission to the awesomeness of it all. But wait, that's just the 4th fucking track! The title track, with its Entombed-esque opening riff, thrashing verse section and a massive chorus hook over Envall's sacrilegious bellowing of "DAWN OF FAYAAAR!!SON OF FLAAYYYYMMME!!LUUUCIFERRR...RAAAAIISINGGGG!!" is a perfect example of how to write a fucking GREAT death metal song.There is no respite from the neck snappage, once you have embarked upon the musical panzer that is Lvcifer Rising. Sacrament in Red bulldozes whatever is left of your pitiful spinal cord into nothingness.The pace of this song is BLINDING, near 3 minutes of constant para-220 bpm tempo riffage. Ascent, an instrumental, is an ideal album closer intended to play out as a soundtrack to the ascent of Cthulhu from R'lyeh and glory to the old ones, it does so with frightening heaviness. Fuck the ton of bricks, have you seen how Coyote gets fucked over, getting run over by a truck,dropping into the canyon followed by the largest rocks in the vicinity? Think twice that much weight falling on your head and you might get close to the IMMENSE ownage of this song. The leads generally follow the Entombed/Dismember template, ala screeching, whammy abused pieces of delight adding to what is already a heady dose of uber-riffage.

The production values on Lvcifer Rising are simply stunning. The folks over at Berno Studio have done a massive job on this. There is a very fine line between being well produced and being over produced and most modern bands do not know how to tread that line without falling onto the filth of over production. Post- Revelation Nausea- Vomitory and Vile on The New Age Of Chaos (damn you, Unique Leader!!), are very good example of bands that has crossed that line with very appalling results. Even though the music is definitely worth drooling over, I have grown to distance myself from these albums owing to the plasticine nature of the sound. The sound on Kaamos' Lvcifer Rising however, is a specimen for judging good production on a death metal album. The guitar tones are absolutely humongous and meaty, the drum sound stays delightfully healthy without thankfully being triggered to hell and even though the bass is mixed a tad low on the album, it still makes its presence felt as the situations warrant.

It is extremely depressing that a fine band like Kaamos have chosen to end their alliance at a time when bands like them are death metal's most pressing need but I couldn't think of a better example of going out with the proverbial bang. (Well, technically Scales Of Leviathan is an MCD so..).Lvcifer Rising joins Blessed Are The Sick and Failures For Gods as the soundtrack to my Saturday night satanic ritual. Death metal lives!!

Year: 2005

Label: Candlelight Records

Tracklisting:

1.Black Revelation
2.Gnosticon
3.Inaugurating Evil
4.Theriomorphic Pandaemonium
5.Dark Void
6.Lucifer Rising
7.Sacrament In Red
8.Mysterious Reversion
9.Chthonic
10.Ascent