PREACH ETERNAL GOSPELS

This band is included in PA ? That's a surprise because I remember they as a dark death/ doom metal band. I actually distributed their albums in Norway. I thought I had lost their albums, but I found a copy among the rest of my metal albums.

This album is probably best described as a darker version of Paradise Lost's debut album Lost Paradise. This album was actually one of the first ever albums blending death, grind and very dark doom. The sound is pretty bad, but the feeling of total darkness is there. The vocals is death growls. The guitars are detuned. The pace varies between fast and slow. The songs are not too bad. But they all fall well short of today's standards and the developments in this scene has left this album behind. I think this album is pretty impossible to find anywhere. But if you like this kind of music, maybe this is an album worth checking out. It was a nice return to the old days, but this is sadly not something I would listen to anymore.

2 stars

"Preach Eternal Gospels" is an EP release by Dutch death/doom metal act Phlebotomized. The EP was released through Malodorous Mangled Innards Records in the autumn of 1993. It´s the successor to the September 1992 "In Search of Tranquillity" EP. The "In Search of Tranquillity" EP didn´t feature any new material though as all material featured on the EP were culled from the March 1992 "Devoted To God" demo. So the material on "Preach Eternal Gospels" is the first new original compositions from Phlebotomized since the release of "Devoted To God". "Tragic Entanglement" and "Ataraxia" from "Devoted To God" have however been re-recorded and included here, so "Preach Eternal Gospels" actually only features three completely new tracks in "In Memory of Our Departured Ones (1914-1918)", "Mustardgas", and "Preach Eternal Gospels".

It´s Phlebotomized first professional studio recording and it means a lot as a listener to be able to hear their progressive inclined old school death/doom metal with better sounding production values than the ones found on their early demo recordings. This is a band with many interesting songwriting ideas and compostional details, which are now audible in the soundscape. In addition to heavy distorted guitar riffs and drumming, the music also features some gloomy/eerie sounding keyboards and a violinist has also been added to the ranks since the last release, which provides the band´s music with another layer. This would unfortunately be Barry Schuyer´s last release with Phlebotomized, because his ultra brutal deep growling vocals are both powerful and well performed.

If comparisons should be made to any contemporary artists I´d mention Pan.Thy.Monium as the band who Phlebotomized have most in common with. The unpreditability of the song structures, the use of gloomy/eerie sounding keyboards, and the adventurous approach to songwriting. This is a band who can go from sounding like a lot of other old school death metal artists from the early 90s (with both heavy mid-paced sections and faster-paced blasting), to playing melancholic/mournful doom/death metal parts, to playing some pretty interesting progressive ideas. All within the same song. Definitely worth a listen this one. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).