Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 10: Diabolical Masquerade: Death's Design

I mentioned this album before on this blog. This is a very strange one. First, a little bit of a back story on the band. Diabolical Masquerade is a side project of Anders Nystrom (Blakkheim), guitarist of Katatonia. He is actually the only member, with occasional contributions from others. The band was conceived as a way for Blakkheim to compose extreme metal while Katatonia continued to mellow their sound. The music is based in black metal with elements of thrash and avant-garde metal thrown in.

Now, the album, as I mentioned, has its own backstory. The album was conceived as the soundtrack to a non-existent Swedish horror movie, similar to the Final Destination series, in which death is stalking people. The album contains 61 tracks broken up into 20 movements. The music is all over the place, one minute black metal, another thrash metal. There are frequent symphonic moments throughout.

I had heard something about this album soon after moving to St. Paul when my interest in metal grew exponentially. It intrigued me, but I had no idea how to find the album. It was out of print and hard to locate. Then, I ordered a Grab Bag on Century Media and this album was included. It's definitely a bizarre listen, but it's extremely captivating.