The Project Hate MCMXCIX - Armageddon March Eternal (Symphonies of Slit Wrists)
Threeman Recordings – TRECD019 - October 5th, 2005
By Josh Phillips
So here it is, at last, my most anticipated album of the year from perhaps my favorite band on the planet. Really, anticipation is a double-edged sword. I was extremely interested in the album pre-release and made sure to keep updated by the band’s website and forums and I listened to all the wonderful one minute clips and listened as Lord K described the pure domination this album would be, quite eagerly. But when you go through that process, you tend to build an album up to epic proportions and only a monumental delivery by that record can live up to the standards you’ve already set. Now, interestingly enough,
Opeth’s
Ghost Reveries and this album were the two monster releases I expected this year and although I held no anticipation for the former, these two records ended up following the exact same path.
As any great release does, it takes time to realize how good it really is. With
Armageddon March Eternal, I faced the same doubt over the course of the first couple of listens as I did with
Ghost Reveries. I was worried that this album would not match previous output, but as is inevitable, that began to fade as the little subtleties of a great record began to reveal themselves and I ended up with the best album that each band has created.
If nothing else,
The Project Hate has always been, and will always be one of the most unique bands on the planet. No one else sounds like them and it can be credited to the madness of Lord K Philipson. His musical vision is one so fiercely apocalyptic and vile, yet beautiful and refined, that it is almost impossible to find a band that conjures better imagery or evokes a more emotionally powerful reaction from the listener. Lord K writes a better riff than anyone that I’ve ever heard and how he is able to craft music that transitions so flawlessly from mid-paced powerful riffs, haunting keyboards, female vocals and soaring lead guitar to monstrous double-bass, pounding guitar work and the most demonic vocals ever recorded, is completely uncanny. Those vocals are provided courtesy of Jorgen Sandstrom and my only guess is that Lord K personally asked Satan to let him borrow his fiercest demon so he could make some real Christ-killing music, and he was obviously obliged. Sandstrom even has the edge on another extreme metal vocal juggernaut, Mikael Akerfeldt, and on this record he churns out perhaps the fiercest display of his abilities yet. He is both understandable and as viciously caustic as possible. Of course, to offset this spectrum of
The Project Hate’s music, we have the beautiful vocals of Ms. Jo Enckell. Put simply, she owns this record. Ms. Jo was amazing on the previous release,
Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate, but now, she simply soars leaps and bounds over most female vocalists that I know of. On what is perhaps the song of the year, "Godslaughtering Murder Machine", she delivers her vocal lines with such power, emotion and melody, that I can scarcely imagine a catchier tune. She took steps to become an even better vocalist for this record and it payed off. The perfect mix of demonic and angelic for an album with “Armageddon” written right into the title.
Though these two vocalists give stand out performances in every way, the rest of the band refuses to be outshone. Petter S. Freed, affectionately known as Mazza, is back on the album and he contributes by helping to write the music and pairing up with Lord K to create a firestorm of guitar thrashing. Both of these players have immense feeling for their instrument and their playing is always solid and their riff and lead work plenty groovy, soaring and masterful. The drums are programmed as always, though again, they are integrated into the music tastefully and if you didn’t know any better, you’d simply assume that there was a flesh and blood drummer in there on the kit. The drums are given a full, realistic sound and fit as well as every other instrument into the grand scheme of the album. The bass, for the first time, is handled by someone other than Lord K, as Michael Hakansson of
Evergrey fame takes over. Lord K wanted somebody whose sole focus was bass to handle the duties on this record and though I always liked K’s work in the past, Hakansson does a fabulous job in his own right. He adds a full sound to an album that was masterfully produced by K and Dan Swano and if you want a highlight of his abilities listen to “I See Nothing But Flesh” or “Godslaughtering Murder Machine.” As always, plenty of emotion is packed into the album's softer moments by the keyboard work of Lord K Philipson, who uses the instrument to take the lead at times and at other times to back the guitars or weave it’s own path underneath the rest of the music. And no, don’t be afraid of the word “keyboard.” In
The Project Hate, it is used more like a Grand Piano and adds so much flavor to the music. Which also brings me to an interesting point. On the new album, the industrial elements that took a much larger role on past efforts are now more blended into the background and given a much smaller role, making this album sound more fleshy. Whereas the first record
CyberSonic SuperChrist had a mechanical feeling,
When We Are Done, Your Flesh Will Be Ours had a warm, bright feeling and
Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate had a cold, mystical feeling, this new record sounds, as I stated, very human. Instead of getting the feeling of being a demon at war, an angel being dismembered or any other assortment of divine things, this record makes the listener feel more like the one caught up in the middle of the struggle as they make their impact felt in the greatest war the earth has ever known. So, that brings me full circle to my original point.
The Project Hate consistently re-invent themselves and at the same time, do so without having to draw off of other bands or compromise their sound. This is the same brutal, majestic, hellfuck of a band that it has always been and always will be.
This mixture of skull-crushing riffs, demonic and angelic vocals, keyboards, industrial and apocalyptic atmosphere is again a winning formula. This band is perhaps more full of piss and vinegar than ever before and they unleash it in the form of
Armageddon March Eternal. I won’t point out highlights, because the album is solid from beginning to end, all 65 minutes and 40 seconds of it. I do suggest that anyone interested in checking out this record listen to “At the Entrance to Hell’s Unholy Fire”, “Resurrected for Massive Torture”, or “Godslaughtering Murder Machine.” If only because they are all amazing tracks that can also be taken out of the context of the release and enjoyed just as much. It’s quite obvious that I simply have nothing but the best to say about this band. It’s rare when you enjoy every single moment of an album as I have with
Armageddon March Eternal, but it’s even more rare when you enjoy every single moment of every single song a band has ever written and that is the case for me and
TPH. So, I’ll quit ranting and say you should simply go buy this album, it’s a fucking beast. Dominate.
9.95/10
Official The Project Hate MCMXCIX Website
Official Threeman Recordings Website
UM's Review of Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate
TPH are a pretty obscure band and their material is sometimes difficult to run across. Threeman.net has their albums and you might check around other online distros and those in the U.S. if you're located over here. I don't think that many real life stores would carry this kind of thing, you might ask Garin where he got his copy though. Excellent band.
