Featuring members of Entombed, Grave, Evergrey,
The Project Hate
MCMXCIX simply put is death metal crossed with darkwave. Power and energy
filled death riffs are mixed with eerie melodic darkwave. The combination
will make you think that the soundboard was possessed during recording.
Well it was in one way… The well-respected musician/producer Dan Swano
mixed this disc along with one of the founders of this band, Lord K Philipson.
If death metal beats aren’t enough to implode your mind, their combination
with darkwave will. This forth recording is evil, heavy, brutal and complex!
Parts remind me of many bands including My Dying Bride, Amon Amarth, Fear
Factory, Theatre of Tragedy, Novembers Doom, The Gathering, and Dark Tranquility.
Some maybe for a second, but are at least memorable enough to note. It’s
hard to point out faults on this disc because of what they accomplish on
this album, but sometimes the industrialized elements change the pace or
tempo and cut the flow of songs. It doesn’t occur often but when it
does it makes you think that they could have brought certain parts together
a little better. Nothing is too outlandish. Except that there are no short
tracks on this disc, just about everything is eight minutes or longer. What
does that add up to? Eight tunes and over sixty minutes of hybrid darkness.
So that’s not a negative, you don’t have to worry about two
minutes undeveloped songs. After checking out some info on www.theprojecthate.net
about the disc I noticed there are quite a few guests on the album. Guest
performances from members of Defleshed, Vicious Art, Damnation, Grave and
more. Take a peak at the backing vocal list: Gustaf Jorde, Jonas Granvik,
Morten Hansen, Linus Ekström, Peter Andersson, Anders Eriksson, Lalle
Levin, Tobben Sillman, Jocke Widfeldt, Matti Mäkelä, Insulter
of Jesus Christ!, Jonas Torndal, Anders Schultz, and Björn Åkesson.
Wow, what a list! Some of those names should be familiar to you, as long
as you haven’t been living under a rock for the last ten plus years.
At any rate people into death and doom metal should be rather pleased with
this, the darkwave mixed in might throw you a bit though. One final note
that I had to mention about “Armageddon March Eternal (Symphonies
of slit wrists)” is that The Project Hate MCMXCIX has dedicated this
album to Mieszko Talarczyk of Nasum who was lost in the Tsunami on December
26, 2004. Metal Horns Up!!
Rating: 84
Reviewed By: Jeffrey D. Adkins |
