Customer Reviews

Rebirth: Metamorphosis Into Godhood

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It has been 6 years since "Those Who Have Risen" was released. The wait is finally over and what we have is an angry, fierce & devastating release from Columbus, Ohio's ACHERON. I have been following ACHERON since the release of "Rites of the Black Mass" which was released in 1992. Each album is completely different from the next. Surprisingly this is the biggest leap the band has taken forward, while also reclaiming their old fan base from the "Rites..." days. This album starts off with the most aggressive song the band has written since "Prayer of Hell" in the form of "Church of One." The song writing is more aggressive and more brutal than their last two releases. One great thing is that this album continues the trend of their last album with NO intros after each song (thank Satan!). This release also sees the keyboards disappear that were so dominant on "Anti-god; Anti-christ" and "Those Who Have Risen." Michael Estes continues to shred on the guitar and has only gotten better with age( he has since been removed from the line up). Vincent Crowley's vocals are the most impressive I have heard from him. This album is a great "resurrection" album and I am glad to see they are still around. If you have never heard of ACHERON they truly stand alone in sound and they avoid following trends. Their other releases are listed below (you will have to search them out on eBay):
Rites of the Black Mass (1992)
Lex Talionis (1994)
Satanic Victory (1994)
Hail Victory (1995)
Anti-god; Anti-Christ (1996)
Those Who Have Risen (1998)
Compendium Diablerie (demos & rare) (2001)
Tribute to the Devil's Music (2003)

Decade Infernus (2004) (best of with tracks from all previous albums remastered)

Also check out WOLFEN SOCIETY featuring Vince & Kyle from ACHERON along with members of DARK FUNERAL, ELECTRIC HELLFIRE CLUB.

If you want more info check out www.acheron666.com for mp3 and other things

> Yeah, I couldn't get a good grip on this one from the short sound samples I heard. As it turns out Michael Estes does some mean guitar solos throughout the album (good stuff). The first and last tracks (intro/outro) could have been done without .... Track 6 is a spoken anti-religion spoken intro. So I look at this as more like an EP. Better overall than I thought it'd be.

Acheron has apparently been around since the late 80s, but "Rebirth" is my first experience of the band. It's fairly obvious from viewing the cover of this, their 7th full length album, that Acheron is not sending a message of love and peace. It's definitely one of the more grotesque and disturbing images to have graced an album in some time. In fact there really isn't anything subtle about their work at all. This is straight forward satanic death metal.

Previous to listening to "Rebirth", I had read some rather unflattering reviews of the album. So it came as quite a surprise, after being subjected to a rather cliche hell-themed intro, that the first real track "Church of One", is actually pretty good. This is not death metal in the more brutal direction such as Cryptopsy or Nile. It's more along the lines of say Obituary or early Death. It's very much riff-orientated, with quite a few changes of speed to keep things interesting, along with some solid drumming and standard death metal vocals.
As the album progresses though, it starts to become more apparent as to why "Rebirth" has been so critically panned.

Firstly, it may be quite solid, but it's just so standard and unoriginal. This sort of album may have been quite successful back in the early 90s, but it's not really enough to get my attention today. Secondly, I find the lyrics and overall theme to be immature at best. When a band does the evil thing well, it can leave the listener with a feeling of genuine unease (Deicide used to be good at it, Akercocke do it quite well now). But Acheron comes across as evangelistic Satanists and it all ends up being corny and at times laughable. But worst of all, Acheron thought the album would benefit from a 9 minute ear piercing tone as a closer, which would not only cause the neighbours dogs to go psycho, but if listened to in its entirety, is enough to drive someone completely mad. It's all very well to say "just ignore it and stop the album after track 8", but I don't find that acceptable. Its just rubbish, and I can't understand why any band would feel the need to do something like that.

Anyway, Acheron is not terrible. They just need to concentrate on making a full album of varied music if they are going to stand up and be counted. Their next release would need to be a true rebirth if it's to be any more worthy of our attention.