Customer Reviews

Realm of Ecstasy

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you like Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt, and/or any of San Diego Punk Rock icon John Reis's works, Pitchfork's album "Eucalyptus" is incredible stuff. Pitchfork came out prior to it all and is worth buying if you can find it (the cd contains three tracks from an ep which weren't on the lp. It's a shame the bass player left and that Reis dissolved the band. But we got Jehu, Rocket, and the Snakes as compensation. Not bad at all! Anyway, buy it if can stand to listen to music as cool as this.
(Just recently found out Swami Records is scheduled to re-release this album Feb. 2003)

This music will make some uncomfortable since it occupies an uncatagorizable space. But like a rock in your shoe it will make you jump around. It offers a mix of pleasure and pain, rhythm and harmonics. Any album that rates a ten is too perfect. This one is human yet godly and still a beast. If I want rock I listen to this.

Thanatos are one of the leading death metal bands to originate from Holland, along with their fellow countrymen and pals Sinister. The band formed all the way back in the mid-'80s and had already released a more death-thrash debut in 1989's Emerging From The Netherworlds, which had a few good songs, but ultimately Realm Of Ecstasy is stronger. Recorded in October of 1991, it came during the peak of the early-'90s death metal boom.

Here the band boast a fairly typical sound for this period, always fast'n furious but without reaching blasting speed. Stephan Gebedy pretty much has the standard guttural growl, but that's part of the reason I like it -- it's totally brutal, as is the music, which shows some classy riffsmanship and clearly has more going on than many lesser underground death bands of the time.

The reason I actually rate it slightly less than four stars is that some of the tracks run together a bit, but definite standouts are opener "And Jesus Wept," "Human Combustion," and my personal favorite, "Terminal Breath."

Being on a small label (Shark), this disc was extremely hard to find back in the day (I had to obtain mine through mailorder), and it's no easier to come by now, even though it's since been reissued once or twice.

I've always loved the cover artwork, which is sadly not featured prominently on Amazon, and the purple color of the layout. That and the band's logo are unusual for brutal death metal, though being an old band, the logo probably predates the band's shift in sound.

All in all, a recommended release for all early-'90s death metal completists.

(As a sidenote, the back cover of the CD contains a typo, as the correct title to track number two is "Tied Up, SLICED Up," not "Slices Up.")

Hey, all. Glad you drifted over to this listing to read up on this nugget, since it will finally be re-released in 8 days(!) I went to the trouble several years back of procuring not one, not two, but three brand new copies of this album on CD just to make up for the fact that I had been looking for so long and because the CD was out-of-print and BLOODY hard to find! (Don't worry - I'm not British) I had a cassette copy that I would play in the car and the energy and body-moving qualities of this music was so addictive that I was plainly worried I would wear out the tape and wanted a digital copy for posterity. The story goes that I was aware of this band back when they started - I had been following everything that was coming out on the then-fledgling Nemesis Records. But somehow Pitchfork escaped my true attention. Fast forward a couple years later to hearing Drive Like Jehu's debut when I was a college radio DJ. Wow! It took a while of further band activity and visibility of these guys (Reis in particular) and then an end-of-the-century scrambling to get certain out-of-print CD's like RFTC's "Scream Dracula Scream" (that it was OOP still surprises me) to light that fire that compelled me to search out this CD. Strangely enough, the old online Sam Goody store had them available, but it was under a weird alternate title listing. Okay, the upshot of all this is, I'm kinda disappointed it won't be a rare "secret" anymore, but there is MUCH to be said for having this incredibly-ahead-of-their-time band on CD for the last several years it was out of print, instead of just helplessly waiting until Feb. 18th, 2003. For some reason, this CD was the only Nemesis CD title that was kept unavailable, and it is by far the best, especially considering the lineage to well-known bands. You can just imagine the feeling knowing you (I, that is) had such a hot little commodity in your collection. Also interesting to note is that several sources had Reis (if not also Froberg) expressing their embarrassment in participating in this album. That is certainly mystifying from a true music lover's point of view. I guess money (in the form of collector prices) talks, enough so that their minds at least changed enough to "satisfy demand" by re-releasing this. ...

I like this band I have the albume. Its a few years old where the hell can I get a CD?