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Acheron: Decade infernus (1988-1998)

07/11/12 || Sokaris

“Greatest Hits are for housewives and little girls!”
-Bruce McCollough as a record store clerk featured in a sketch on Kids in the Hall

The compilation is an interesting thing to review. Depending on the nature of the collection, its necessary to grade things on a different scale and judge by a different criteria. For example, a Judas Priest greatest hits album was recently released. I don’t give enough of a shit to look up its name… hell, if I just leave it at that, this article will stay current for eternity as “Essential” and “Hit” collections wash up at a steady pace. If I were to review a collection of popular Judas Priest songs I’d probably give it the lowest possible score. The music is of course high caliber, but what the hell kind of value does something like that hold?

On the other hand, we have compilations of previously unavailable or hard to find songs. This is usually the kind of release that appeals to die-hard fans, since there’s an expectation that what’s contained wasn’t released on a full-length for a reason. This review isn’t specifically about the nature of compilations but rather focuses on an interesting Acheron collection that covers the band’s first decade of existence. So, long, tangentially-related introduction out of the way, let’s dive into what exactly “Decade infernus” is.

I remember picking this up during some kind of blowout sale on one of the distros I frequent. I couldn’t have paid more than $4 after shipping and I figured it’d be a good way to experience more of Acheron’s back catalog, of which I owned little. Plus there’s some big ol’ titties on the cover, always a plus. Speaking of filled-out pairs, “Decade infernus” features two discs, over an hour each. Contained on this album are the majority of Acheron’s songs ranging from debut “Rites of the black mass” to their final recording, before relocating to Ohio, “Those who have risen”. A handful of songs are missing, any redundant recordings are only represented once and everything is basically in shuffle mode, without any kind of order to the tracks. Normally, the OCD metal nerd in me would find this unacceptable, and while just doing a normal chronological and complete reissue of the old stuff would make more sense there’s actually an improvement here over the early Acheron modus operandi that should be mentioned. The first four albums all featured introductions… to every song. Every single goddamn song. Their albums generally weren’t that long anyway, so padding the shit out of them makes for an especially frustrating listen. This compilation wisely ignores these compositions and provides two hours of actual songs.

Musically you should know what to expect; if you’ve heard an Acheron song you know their sound. Meat and potatoes death metal, slightly blackened with some keyboard seasoning every great once in a while. It’s all very basic, very simple and doesn’t really offer surprises (besides the occasional shredding lead from Michael Estes on a few recordings) but there’s some great headbanging riffery to be found. Losing a song here or there isn’t a giant issue for this particular band and I actually found myself parting with an original copy of “Anti-god, anti-Christ” since “Decade infernus” features everything from that album aside from a cover song and Peter Gilmore (a High Priest of the Church of Satan) sounding really bored every other track. Listening to two hours of this stuff isn’t really recommended but whenever I need a Floridian fix of this nature, the comp serves me well. In a perfect world this would feature Acheron’s early discography in sequence and maybe just include three albums in their entirety instead of editing songs out to cover a whole decade.

6,5

Information
Released: 2004
Label: Black Lotus Records
Website: Acheron MySpace
Band
Vincent Crowley: vocals, bass, guitars
Pete Slate: guitars
Tony Blakk: guitars
Michael Estes: guitars
Vincent Breeding: guitars
Ben Meyer: guitars
John Scott: keyboards
James Strauss: drums
Mike Browning: drums
Richard Cristy: drums
Tony Laureano: drums

Tracklist
Disc One:
01. Thou art lord
02. God is dead
03. Slaughterization for Satan
04. Blessed by damnation
05. Immortal sigil
06. Let us depart
07. Satanic erotica
08. One with darkness
09. Fuck the ways of Christ
10. Lifeforce (The blood)
11. The Enochian key
12. 666
13. Enter thy coven
14. Final harvest
15. Ave Satanas
16. Prayer of hell
Disc Two:
01. Out of body
02. Alla xul
03. To thee we confess
04. Shemhamforash (The ultimate blasphemy)
05. Purification day
06. Hekel Tiamat
07. Seven deadly sins
08. Cursed Nazarene
09. Necromanteion communion
10. Baptism for Devlyn Alexandria
11. Legions of hatred
12. Unholy praises
13. Summoning the master
14. Voices within
15. The undead celebration
16. The entity

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