siLLy puPPy AKERCOCKE emerged on the London extreme metal scene in 1997 formed by vocalist / guitarist Jason Mendonça and drummer David Gray who had both previously played in the black metal band Salem Orchid. After recruiting guitarist Paul Scanian, keyboardist Martin Bonsoir and bassist Peter Theobalds, the bizarrely named AKERCOCKE commenced to create some of the wildest and craziest extreme metal of the entire 90s and with the release of its debut RAPE OF THE BASTARD NAZARENE, many extremophile metalheads certainly took notice! While the 90s had been the decade of death metal, black metal and the splintering off of many newly designated subgenres, AKERCOCKE was unusual in how it took aspects of many styles of metal and non-metal alike and forged a completely new stylistic approach.

Deemed as one of the best British debut albums ever released by Terrorizer magazine, AKERCOCKE hit the scene and immediately stood out for its erratic stage presence, unorthodox musical style and over-the-top celebration of everything Satanic and psycho-sexual. In this regard the band took the ethos of the early 70s band Black Widow where it did away with any subtitles and ambiguity and simply announced in full celebratory glee that Christianity was bad and everything Satan or Lucifer was to be revered. Perhaps a little adolescent in approach but adds a humorous element to an otherwise extremely intense delivery of death metal growls that mixed grindcore, black metal, post-punk and a touch of progressive rock.

This debut is quite different than the more progressive albums that followed. RAPE OF THE BASTARD NAZARENE was the band’s gritty grimy DIY self-released album that featured a muddy production and a give no fucks attitude about how to deliver a stream of Satanic extreme metal compositions and crazy spoken word narratives that pop up throughout the album’s original 33 minute plus run. After the short declaration of two girls denouncing all things Christian and declaring only Satan and Lucifer as the true way, the album starts off with a bizarre metal style that is really apparent what exactly it is. It sounds like death metal with growly vocals, blastbeat drumming ferocity, speedfest riffing and the intensity of an old school death metal but it also features a buzzing guitar sound, call and response female vocals backing up the growly leads and an unorthodox sort of grindcore meets post-punk compositional style.

The tracks retain a rather industrial style as if Killing Joke were the basis of the rhythms while the death metal handled the tones, timbres and delivery system. The track “Marguerite & Gretchen” jumps into a strange progressive metal style with clean vocals and crazy time signatures along with varying musical motifs that find the clean vocals and the growly ones having a full fledged duet along with female singers as the backups. The album is regularly interpreted by various intermissions that reaffirm their allegiance to Satan such as the 2-minute “Conjuration” which makes the entire album feel as if it was made by a Satanic cult. In this regard it reminds me of those Father Yod and his Ya Ho Wa 13 projects from the 70s were the cult members participated in chanting and other subordinate musical contributions.

I guess the best term to describe this would be avant-blackened death metal but really the debut by AKERCOCKE is unique even by the band’s own standards. It’s like the ferocious old school death metal of Obituary collided with the Luciferian first wave black metal of Venom with the giddiness of 70s Black Widow, the grind aspects of Pig Destroyer along with some prog technicalities and dark ambient rituals. The album doesn’t seem to get a lot of love in the greater AKERCOCKE canon but it’s actually one of my favorites. It’s so bizarre and unapologetically evil as fuck that it becomes endearing in a very morbid twisted way! Best of all the album is a testament to the creative spirit of a newbie band spewing its venom on the world’s stage. Add to that the instrumental interplay is excellent and the juxtaposition of styles and interludes makes the entire thing come off as a stage performance of some kind. While the production is the main complaint on this one, personally i find it makes the underground cult feel more authentic. To me this is an excellent slice of crazy extreme metal from the 90s.

Pelata Akercocke, England’s diabolical, intelligent masters of brutality, have returned with Antichrist; an album of superbly executed, well contrasted and aurally punishing Death Metal. After spinning this album several times, I can find almost nothing to even begin to complain about…almost.

First off, Akercocke is a wickedly good band. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a better, more talented group of Death Metal musicians. Every single instrument on this album is handled with the utmost skill and passion. The album itself, as a whole (which is how it is best taken), is a fine example of emotional give and take; head-crushingly brutal one moment and soul-stirringly beautiful the next.

If I had to point out anything that I think is potentially harmful to the album, especially when it comes to finding new fans, is that it’s similar to Opeth’s past work. The melding of Death Metal and Prog Rock is amazing to listen to, and I don’t believe for one minute that it was Akercocke’s intent, but I found myself saying “Opeth…Opeth…Opeth, again…oh man…” at Antichrist’s many twists and turns. Not any one album, mind you. But there is enough similarity in the vibes and moods of the album that the comparison is basically unavoidable.

I hate to even bring it up, honestly, but I can hear your average up-and-coming Metalhead making the same comparison and, as much of a crime as it would be, write it off as an aping. Antichrist may be a daring, bold move for Akercocke itself, but certainly not something we’ve not heard before somewhere else.

I’m sure Akercocke’s embedded fan base will take violent exception to this (as I am sure they can hear things in this album I cannot), but as good as this album is musically, it is certainly just as Opeth-familiar. It won’t keep me from listening to it, and it shouldn’t keep you from listening to it either…it’s a fine record. But I’m fairly certain you’ll be muttering the other band’s name several times in the duration.

adg211288 The first thought that came into my head upon by first play of Antichrist was: “Idiots” Yes, for all their technical mastery Akercocke have done what I consider to be the most idiotic thing that can be done with any album, and that is to begin the CD with an ‘intro’ type track that has zero musical integrity. Black Messiah is nothing but just under a minute of noise. In most cases I consider intro tracks to be pointless anyway (most of the time they were be better as part of the first proper song) but this just ridiculous. It’s like Akercocke were trying to give the skip button a meaning for its existence. This is by far one of the worst intro tracks I’ve ever heard. An acoustic instrumental would have worked well here especially as a lead-into Summon the Antichrist. But no, we get noise. As it goes this does make for an okay build up to Summon the Antichrist, but all in all this is just worthless and a very bad way to set my first impressions of the album.

Thankfully the album’s proper songs offer up more than enough redeeming factors for Black Messiah to be looked over as a stupid mistake. There’s plenty of variety on offer since Akercocke’s music is heavily progressive with much alternating between heavy and light sections and with the odd alternate music style thrown in for good measure (The Dark Inside has a section that sounds like new wave music for example). There’s a mix of harsh growls and clean vocals too, which is actually my second (and final) major complaint about Antichrist. It’s the growls that disappoint me. I’m not adverse to really brutal growling but I do like to at least hear what most of the lyrics are without having to follow the booklet and with Jason Mendonca you cannot hear a word that he’s going on about when he growls. In fact I struggle even when reading the lyrics out of the CD booklet. While this isn’t something that will greatly affect the impact of the music, since this sort of vocal is typically used like it were another instrument, it just doesn't sit quite right with me.

Song highlights from Antichrist are Axiom, which features a strong mix of acoustics (surprisingly with a blast beat drum pattern over the top, which even more surprisingly actually works really well) and heavy riffs and a great melodic solo section from Matt Wilcock. My Apterous Angel is another song that mixes acoustics and heavy riffs but with some sound effects of crows cawing that brings to mind a deserted ruin (probably of a church) on a bleak day. Given the album’s lyrical theme the effect really fit’s the mood of the story. Easily the best song though is The Dark Inside, which is one of the most progressive on Antichrist, mainly due to the new wave section that I mentioned earlier. It’s actually quite a surprise when it turns up but it does work really well for the song and Mendonca’s vocals are the best heard on the whole CD. The lyrics over the new wave section are even catchy and it is possible to sing along to it. Then the extreme black/death metal hits again with a great solo section from Jason.

Elsewhere Antichrist offers a bit of a mixed bag due to the fact that not every song on here is likely to meet approval with everyone who listeners to it. Many are so vastly different that people could like Summon the Antichrist, but not Epode or Distant Fires Reflect the Eyes of Satan. I’ll explain how the album varies. The Promise features only spoken word vocals and really does give a feeling that the band are trying to seduce you to partake in a Satanic ritual. That is one thing that Akercocke do really well with Antichrist. It is possible to form images in your mind about what is happening in the story. Distant Fires Reflect the Eyes of Satan is an instrumental and sounds quite random in the context of what the band are playing. First we hear some symphonic, then we get some tribal sound drums and woodwind instruments, what I think is a sitar and some chanting. It doesn’t really do the album any favours but at the same time doesn’t spoil it. Listen to it or skip it, it’s the strengths of most of the other songs that make Antichrist worth the money you pay for it. The album ends with Epode, a short acoustic piece.

Lyrical wise the album is heavily Satanic. Not that you really needed me to tell you that, just look at the CD’s title. The brutality of the actual music makes some black metal bands I know sound like Coldplay! So if the most extreme types of metal are your thing then this album is essential for you and if you are a fan of progressive metal then yes, definitely give this album a go as well.

Extra note on the limited edition: This version of the album also features two cover songs, Chapel of Ghouls by Morbid Angel and Leprosy by Death. Chapel of Ghouls is the better one of the two although I personally only know the original version of Leprosy so I have nothing to compare it with. Leprosy to say the least is a lot more brutal than the version that Death recorded but with Jason Mendonca’s voice on it, like the rest of the album, I can barely hear of word of the lyrics. It’s not bad but if you want this song you’re still going to be better off with the original, just like the majority of any cover versions. But both extra songs are worth having if you can get a copy of Antichrist with them on, since they add an extra eleven minutes to its total running time.

So in summary yes, this is an exceptional release from a band who are clearly masters of their trade, however Antichrist is far from perfect. But I’d say that seven of the ten songs on the regular edition are worth having (9 of 12 for the limited edition).