IMPERIUM DEKADENZ

This is turning into Invisible-Oranges-link-week. A couple days ago we wrote here about a post at that site on the “Top 10 Most Overused Words in Metal Journalism.” The list unfortunately included some of our favorite words, including the word “fucking.” So, of course we had to litter our own post with F-bombs, just to make ourselves feel better. And that drew some pretty goddamned funny comments, which also made liberal use of F-words, including an observation from Cosmo Lee that we were all starting to sound like Frank Mullen.

At the same time as I stumbled across that Top 10 post at Invisible Oranges, I also read Cosmo Lee’s review (here) of a new album by a German black-metal band called Imperium Dekadenz. That beautiful review really grabbed me. As we try to do at our site, Cosmo Lee included a track from the album to stream — and the song just floored me. So without delay I bought the album the quickest way I knew how (iTunes) and listened to the whole thing — and I was even more floored.

I thought, there’s a chance some of our readers at NCS might not also follow Invisible Oranges, and this is music I really need to share. So my original plan was just to tell you the album is awesome, point you to Cosmo Lee’s review, make a song available, and quit while I was ahead. That would have been the smart thing to do, because seriously, I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell I could improve on Cosmo’s review.

But I’m not so smart. It occurred to me that although I couldn’t improve on that review, I could translate it into the kind of verbiage we tend to use here at NCS. You know, language written by and for mentally impaired people. And then I thought, what the fuck, I might as well go all-in and channel Frank Mullen while doing that!  So here goes:  (read on after the jump, if you’re mentally impaired . . .)

[Editor’s note: If by some tiny chance you don’t know who Frank Mullen is, you can go here and see some high-quality video footage we posted of Frank and his band Suffocation performing recently in Holland. On the other hand, that footage includes none of Frank’s legendary stage banter. For a sample of that, try this.]

All you motherfuckers out there, put down your fucking joints and shots and listen the fuck up. Are you ready for some fucking brutal, old-school death metal? (NCS readers scream and yell.) I can’t fucking hear you!  (Louder noise from NCS readers.) Well, you’re not gonna fucking get it today, so shut your fucking pieholes. Today, you motherfuckers, I’m gonna tell you about some fucking black metal, so dig the wax out of your ears and listen the fuck up!

You fuckers know black metal when you hear it, don’t you? I sure as hell do even if you motherfuckers don’t. But some bands that are late to the scene — they try to talk the talk, with the fucking spidery logos and two-tone fucking artwork and all that fucking retarded corpsepaint, but do they walk the walk? Fuck no, they don’t! I mean, shit, you don’t have to burn down any goddamned churches, but if you’re gonna call yourself a fucking black metal band, you should at least sound like fucking black metal when you play. Amiright?

Take Imperium Dekadenz. On their first two albums, those motherfuckers sounded like they might have fucked around with covers of Burzum and Darkthrone in their cold-ass basement practice rooms, cuz that’s what you were supposed to fuckin’ do, but what they were really into was churning out that classical-sounding shit. And I don’t mean classics like Death and Morbid Angel. I mean shit from the Dark Ages, like Chopin and Segovia.

I mean, those Dekadenz motherfuckers could play some mean fucking piano and acoustic guitar, along with the black metal, but man, slapping that shit together cheek by jowl was fuckin’ jarring on those earlier albums. And speaking of jarring, I wanna see some action in the pit right fucking now! Stir that shit up, you motherfuckers!

Well, at long fucking last, these German dudes have put out a new album called Procella Vadens that hits the fucking sweet spot, dead center. But I have to ask, where did that fucking name come from? That don’t sound like any fucking language I ever heard. Come to think of it, where did these dudes get their fucking band name? I can’t even pronounce the motherfucker.

But hey, I guess they can call their fucking band and their fucking album whatever the fuck they wanna call it, even if none of you motherfuckers have the slightest fucking idea what it means.

But man, the music on the new album is the fucking shit! I kid you not. They’re like fucking Suffocation — they’ve done something original and they’re not backing down, not for one fucking minute! Try to cram themselves into someone else’s idea of black metal? No they fucking did not!

Now, all you motherfuckers know that I like to bang my head and turn out some brutal as fuck noise — and by the way, I wanna see a fucking old-school circle pit right fucking now! Move that shit around!

Where was I? Oh yeah, I remember. What you probably don’t know about Frank Mullen is he’s got a softer side too — even though you wouldn’t catch me dead letting any melodies into our fucking music.

Look, we’re all damaged people. We all had fucked up childhoods. We’re a bunch of outsiders, judged by other assholes our entire lives, and we all took a blood oath to death metal, extreme metal, whatever you wanna call it. Am I fucking right? Yes, I am fucking right! And all you motherfuckers know that Suffocation stays as far away as we can from beautiful, lush melodies in our own music.  We set out fucking rat traps to keep that kind of shit away.

But that don’t mean we don’t appreciate it when we ain’t on stage. Cuz we do appreciate it. And this new Dekadenz album is some beautiful shit. It’s got that piano. It’s got that acoustic guitar. It’s got that female vocals. Even the black-metal picking and blasting has got that beauty flowing through it, just like a fucking flowing current of evil beauty.

But that don’t mean it ain’t heavy, no sir! Because it is! It is heavy as a big old pair of brass balls, I shit you not! Shit has got some punch to it! Shit you can bang your fuckin’ heads to, even when that fucking current of dark beauty is moving through you.

These are anthems for everything we’ve fuckin’ lost.

So, listen up people! Yes, I do mean you, all you motherfucking readers out there! Listen the fuck up! We’re gonna play you some killer music from Imperium Dekadenz, because that’s what we like to do — we want to fucking kill all of you with the music. And this will fucking slay you — you can take that to the fucking bank!

Imperium Decadenz: Ocean, Mountains Mirror

P.S. Just in case you have any confusion, I’m a huge fan of Suffocation and Frank Mullen. I would listen to Frank read the phone book.