Acheron: Lex Talionis (1994)

This is the second of three Acheron posts.  This one will be covering the band's second full-length album, released in 1994.  It is kind of surprising to find a release with this kind of sound in the early 1990's.  Both death metal and black metal were still fairly new at this point, so to find a band that could blend the genres so early is a little bizarre. 

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Acheron's primary member is one Vincent Crowley who was for a time a reverend in the Church of Satan.  Lex Talionis is the law of retaliation, which is something of an important principle in Laveyan Satanism.  As Anton Lavey, writer of the Satanic Bible, has said, "if a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him on the other".  And this album is something of a tribute to Satanism, featuring occasional spoken word sections that seem lifted from the Satanic Bible.  It has been awhile since I have read it (and I no longer have a copy), but I am almost sure. 

The album's sound is primarily a particularly brutal form of death metal, borne out of the sound of groups like Morbid Angel, Deicide, Incantation and Immolation with a very dark and evil atmosphere.  The vocals are delivered in a gruff, yet easily understood style.  The proper songs on the album sound great, and if the album were just those songs, this would be a fairly impressive release.

Unfortunately, for some reason, Acheron has chosen to completely frustrate the ability to truly get into this album by including a minute-long intro before every single song.  Usually these are keyboard sections, but occasionally take another form.  The result is an album that sounds really choppy and can sometimes be hard to get into.  That is unfortunate, because when Acheron is playing a full song, it can oftentimes be great.