Diabolical Masquerade: Nightwork (1998)

Diabolical Masquerade is the one-man project of Anders Nyström, aka Blakkheim, who was one of the founding members of the gloomy Katatonia as well as Swedish death supergroup Bloodbath.  Diabolical Masquerade is a much more ambitious project, one in which Blakkheim has really been able to spread his creative wings. 

I have previously heard Diabolical Masquerade's Death's Design album, the last of the band's releases to date.  That album was extremely odd.  For one, there was the fact that there were 61 tracks on the album, for a 43 minute long album, but the tracks come together to form one epic song, telling a story similar to the storyline of the Final Destination movies, death stalking people and all.  So it was definitely an intriguing release.  Despite that, I never managed to get any more of the band's releases.

This album is much more straightforward than Death's Design, though that is not to say it is anything close to a standard black metal album.  It is a keyboard-heavy, melodic black metal release.  The keyboard sections have a decidedly gothic flourish to them, combining with the dark atmosphere and ghastly vocals to create a very eerie and spooky-sounding album.  There are occasional spoken word interludes, snippets of a conversation between a woman speaking to a deity she initially thinks is God.  It responds by saying "Do I look like God to you?" 

Next to Death's Design, this is a downright normal album.  But it is still significantly different than most of the rest of the black metal scene by comparison.  Blakkheim masterfully evokes a dark and foreboding atmosphere throughout the album, yet writes some insanely catchy riffs at the same time.  What results is an avante garde take on black metal that captures attention and never lets go.  It tells a story much like the other Diabolical Masquerade album I have heard, but in more of a traditional way.  I think I actually prefer this one to Death's Design, though for much different reasons.

Random Thoughts: Bizarre and Completely Random Albums in Your Collection

I recently mentioned that I had money to burn when I first started working after law school. One of the things that I did was to buy some large lots of CDs off of ebay and pick up one of the Century Media Grab Bags in order to get a bunch of undiscovered metal. Well this left me with some albums by bands that I probably would not have discovered on my own.

Here are some of my favorite albums that I probably would not have picked up myself:

ANDROMEDA: EXTENSION OF THE WISH
Progressive/power metal to me is kind of a hit or miss genre with a lot more misses. Symphony X, Queensryche, Dream Theater, and Fates Warning are all great, but then there are a ton of other groups out there that really do not have anything interesting out there. Andromeda though lurks under the radar and consistently puts out decent albums. This is the band's debut that I got in a Century Media Grab Bag.

CROWN OF THORNS: THE BURNING
Another debut album, this is actually the early version of the Swedish thrash band The Crown. However, in my opinion, this album puts all of The Crown albums to shame. It's faster and more relentlessly intense than any of the future band's albums but it also has more of a melodic death metal overall sound to it. Crown of Thorns released one more album under that name but then changed to The Crown.

DIABOLICAL MASQUERADE: DEATH'S DESIGN
According to main member Blakkheim, this album was supposed to be the soundtrack to a horror film with a plot seemingly very much like the Final Destination series. The album is made up of 61 tracks, going for a total of about 44 minutes, so you can imagine how long the tracks are. But there are obvious groups of tracks that form a song, so this can be listened to like any other album. The music is a bizarre avant-garde take on black metal and it is definitely cinematic. I wish the soundtrack story were true, this would have been much better than the original Final Destination.

I SHALT BECOME: WANDERINGS
I am not ordinarily a big fan of atmospheric/depressive black metal, but this album is definitely an interesting one. It's extremely slow and lulls the listener into an almost hypnotic state with its constantly repeating riffs and swirling melodies. I was a little apprehensive about this due to some labeling it as NSBM, but I cannot find any reason behind this label. It sounds like a mix of Burzum and Judas Iscariot.

RAISE HELL: HOLY TARGET
One of many bands that took Dissection's sound off of Storm of the Light's Bane and ran with it. This album is particularly impressive because the members were very young when they recorded it. The album is fast and aggressive with a bit more of a thrashier sound than Dissection. The lyrics were a little laughable, but these were just kids at the time. They were extremely impressive musicians and songwriters for their age.

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.