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The Wicked: Sonic scriptures of the end times (or songs to have your nightmares with)

15/08/08 || Kampfar

You probably know shit about The Wicked and there you have the reason I wrote this pisser already. And so the education began…

This psychedelic unit is not as much a band as it is a project, members from more or less know Finnish bands – such as Finntroll and Moonsorrow; Trollhorn and Baron Tarwonen respectively – the kind of guys in hiding behind the masks. I would right away like to assure everyone in hate with chirping of birds, the sound of a river, or anything folk metal, that The Wicked sports nothing of such sorts. Think a tivoli version of Dimmu Borgir on acid minus a symphonic orchestra but with a multitude of rather excellent samples, sounds and ideas more than making up for the fact that they spent all their money on drugs rather than a philharmonic orchestra.

In the book of necro, it hasn’t been ok to label Dimmu Borgir black metal since their first demo, and The Wicked is even less of such sorts. Still, this album, and band, is way more of a mind fuck than most grim raccoon squads can ever hope to achieve; if not scary, at least properly twisted and mentally disturbed. So, just like an album telling the story about a guy who suicides and goes to hell should be then.

(The story has a lot more to it than this suicide. Quite interesting, really)

The suicide takes place at the end of “Point-blank avenue & Unbirthday song – the ultimate ordeal”, where an obviously miserable guy sings happy unbirthday to me sometimes over before blowing his brains out. If nothing else, you need to hear this fucker. Good for a laugh, but first and foremost extremely well made, being an excellent showcase for this band’s attention to detail. Here is the splattering sound of a brain being painted unto a wall, a satisfying thump when the body hits the floor, and, my favorite bit, the ticking clock. It says: “fuck, you, fuck, you”

This attention to detail saturates “Sonic scriptures of the end times, or songs to have your nightmares with”, and I’m very impressed, been so for the last 4 years. Here is a motherload of neat details to be “discovered”, not at all unlike The Project Hate in that respect. And yes, they are as good as our K at layering, which is excellent. Both bands also share a fair slice of tecno (whatever) influences, this lot perhaps even more so than the Haters, but The Wicked fortunately don’t use much female vocals. Some, but only as seasoning, same goes for the choir shit. Sounds great.

The backbone of this orchestra is indeed solid riffing churned out through a fairly fat and crunchy yet defined distortion, but, as you might have understood, it can take minutes between the string, chord and skin exercises. Roughly put I think here is 75,22% metal and 24,88% ambience.

And the production, well: huge, detailed, dynamic, excellent and very fitting sums that bit up. Almost, for the drums could have sounded a bit better.

Seeing this band ranked among the black metal hordes tells me that there is a shitty lot of lazy reviewers and whatnot out there. Apart from tortured and often low in the mix black vocals, and the song “H8 universal”, this is not so. Fuck you, take a listen already.

9 out of 10.

Information
Released: 2004
Label: Spikefarm
Website: The Wicked MySpace
Band
Lucius M.K: vocals
Necrotron: guitar, keyboard
Hotpinkplague: bass
Erzebeath Meggadeath: drums

Tracklist
01. Epithimia gia athanasia
02. Riddles without answers & celestial mechanics
03. Phobos IV
04. Point blank avenue & unbirthday song – the ultimate ordeal
05. To kill a friend
06. H8 universal
07. Vaptisma tis gnosis
08. Digital satan
09. Lex praedatorius – eaters of the weak

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