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Rating: Evil. UH!
Third work by the Norwegians 1349 (the year the black plague broke out in their land), "Hellfire" (2005) is the indisputable proof of the definitive maturity of the band led by Ravn. A suffocating album that combines the sick speed of "Liberation" with the intricate riffing of "Beyond The Apocalypse". In simple terms? An exaggerated, crazy album that grips you in its coils and never lets go. When you listen to it, you have to concentrate exclusively on its notes, feel the music burning your guts. An album to have a physical impact with, which will prove to be devastating, and when it's done you'll have received so many scorching kicks in the ass that you won't even understand where you are anymore, dazed and with tattered clothes.
"Hellfire!": this is the battle cry that begins the opening track, "I Am Abomination". As soon as Frost's mashing drums kick in, you'll be overwhelmed and stunned by its killer speed, and you'll find yourself in the midst of an infernal assault, with horses galloping madly, spurred on by Ravn's fiery-eyed screams. You'll then want to reach for the stop button, press it, save yourself from the scorching heat, but you can’t: Tjalve's distorted guitar will lay you out, like a hammer blow to the nape. And it's just the first track. Here's a tip for you, if you have a sister or brother (and if so, condolences) who listens to Spears, the Blue, and other such "nice" company, play a nice trick on them by secretly replacing this nice disc with the one in their stereo, and ENJOY watching them collapse to the ground, suffocated and sweaty, while they futilely plead for mercy.
"Hellfire" runs along these lines, not allowing you even a dried-up oasis, not even a brief moment to catch your breath. You feel your legs being eaten by Cerberus, but at the same time you are seduced by the orderly chaos that the work emanates: it’s Hell with its temptations. Well, maybe you're fooling yourself into thinking you've gotten a handle on it, even though your ears are starting to bleed. "To Rottendom", however, will completely shatter your pathetic illusions: this track is a pure act of violence, arriving quick as a train and hitting you full-on. Try to get up, but there's no use: as the vibrations make the walls shake and the glass shatter, you'll suffer a painful bloodbath beating from the devils of Malebolge, while your eyes roll and are about to pop out.
"From The Deeps", then...here we are in full sadism. It’s like one of those bastard dreams you have as a teenager, where the voluptuous hottie from school, whom everyone craves and follows drooling like snails, finally gives in, and then you wake up moaning and realize you’re humping the pillow. The onslaught pauses for a moment, then resumes, more frenzied and restive than ever. Stuff to make old ladies explode.
And finally, after seven tracks that have literally raped you with a sound that seems almost always the same, but to attentive ears will offer its diabolic nuances without morphing into monotony, you sink into "Hellfire", which lasts—fancy that—13 minutes and 49 seconds. What else can you say? Quite simply, it's a gigantic chili pepper twisting slowly in your ass. Your poor eardrums are now shattered, your skin ripped and burned, your throat parched. And here come 1349 to give you your proper send-off, hitting you with yet another low blow that will make you plunge into the abyss and land in Cocytus, where ice will burn worse than flames and the frigid instrumental end will suck your soul.
The fiftieth minute strikes: the nightmare is over. But if you press the play button again...you have been warned.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 I Am Abomination (04:10)
Hellfire!
I have always been here
In all forms in all perversions
I will always be here
In all ways in all times
A question in hidding
A solution in disguise
I know no bounds
Like a locust storm I rise
Leprous hell-world
My world
Night world
Blood coated
World despoiler
The master of a devils march
I have crossed infernal wastedlands
to plant my flag amongst yer' bones
Rising like a broken bone
Throught a sea of flesh
This world is given
Blood coated
World despoiler
The master of a devils march
Rising like a broken bone
Throught a sea of flesh
This world is given
I have got paths yet to trade
I am abomination
Blood coated
World despoiler
The master of a devils march
Rising like a broken bone
Throught a sea of flesh
This world is given
There is a rot whitin us
The flames lick through your veins
The abhorrent mark descending
Abomination crawling near
The absolute inhuman
I bear the abhorrent mark
My touch like hell's fire
I am abomination
I am abomination!
02 Nathicana (04:39)
Goodbye o creature of folly
The sun still sheds light
On your towers
Of steel and glass
And they will bear silent witness
To the futility of your achivements
And the beasts will roam your streets
Feasting on your cooling flesh
Never again will your like be seen
Such arrogance and folly
The worm has conquered
And you return to dust
Millennia of evolution
Science and religion
Toil and suffering
Still you never learn
Now it is over
And how futile it all was
The dreams on mankind
Rotting away
And thus we all fade
Weep not for your destiny
No-one will be left to mourn
3000 AD
04 Celestial Deconstruction (07:45)
In the end, a new era beckons
Settling the foundation of an infernal
dimension of wrath
A revelation strikes with new awareness
upon the masses
Veil of darkness unravel, a horrific sphere unfolds
An altering of the senses - to discover
What is behing light, beyond celestial slavery
Entangles the mind in dark waves, fiery & monotonous
Deep is the well of dark mystery
The enlightenment of madness presents itself
On the soil above a lower world
In everlasting ebony shades of the damned
Choirs of madness chant in agony, as blood
flows furiously (through my veins)
Blurred visions through a smoke-filled sky
With fists clenched, I gaze on through the ugly
The only right path
The surge of deconstruction casts light aside
The summoning at last
Deceiver, pioneer of this insight
Consume what is of joy
Consume what is of joy!
And enless rage until we dance on the
hypocrites' grave
step on the crucifix
Ans speak the tongue of blasphemy
The shivery
Crawling, freezing through the innards & up the spine
The separating of this shell of flesh
& a dark spirituality
Do I believe?
It believes in me
05 To Rottendom (05:52)
Inescapable hell
Vomited from an impure soil
Riven with death
Like flies on rotten flesh
Hatred is carved onto this earth
On the bones of the dead
The fire of glory has long since faded
To rottendom
Onto rottendom
To rottendom
Onto rottendom
Into a pit of nothingness
Your soul laid bare
You all shall be none
Crawl back to your nest
Salt this earth with your dying sons
Feverish dreams of a world down in flames
Marching to the downstrokes
Of hells titan pistons
Exquisite execution
In a burning grip
The rotted life - blood drains away
Onto rottendom
Standind in mute judgement
Foul souls in bounds of iron
Harkening to the death watch
Hell is your cross to bear
Hell is your cross to bear!
To rottendom
Onto rottendom
06 From the Deeps (06:25)
Ia! Ia!
The stars are rights!
For aenos they have slumbered
Dead but dreaming
Waiting beneath the waves
Awaken!
Daemon-gods of primeval times
Coming round full circle
Stirring in the deep
Rise! Rise! Rise!
Boiling wasters part
Cyclopean cities emerge
From the deeps
And then...
Insanity and fear
Overwhelm the humans
Outnumbered and inferior
Kraken, Leviathan, Cthulhu
So many names given
To the fear from the deeps...
Awaken! Kraken
Awaken! Leviathan
Awaken! Cthulhu
Rise! Rise! Rise! Rise!
From the deeps...
Ia! Ia!
07 Slaves to Slaughter (06:11)
Slaves to the slaughter
Marching on to your death
Like a cannonery of beast angels
On the bones of a million dead
Through the womb of night
Into nuclear fire storms
Neuro-active limbic death
Vengance be fulfilled
Primus tyrant
Nuclear retributionist
War-smith despoiler
Wickedness for the wickeds sake
Ever forward
Sworm in a code... a code of blood
Rend them asunder
Drinking deep of victory... of victory!
Torn into bloody ruins
I want your hands on a plate
Slaves to the slaughter
It is carnifies in the flesh
A steel-clad mass of evil
Heretic dogs & nuclear hearts
Through curtains of atomic death
I can smell your fear
Crested in fields of fire
Screaming blindly into hell
Primus tyrant
Nuclear retributionist
War-smith despoiler
Wickedness for the wickeds sake
Ever forward
Sworm in a code of blood
Rend them asunder
Drinking deep of victory
Torn into bloody ruins
I want your hands on a plate
08 Hellfire (13:49)
My icon is the pentagram
The warmth from me
Are pleasures of the flesh
I fill you with ecstasy
My nature is that of excess
Let me out of the circle
And I will burn you
I will burn you!
My icon is the cross of Peter
I turn the aeons
I destroy dead dogmas
And create the paradigms
Of the new order
Of the new order!
Of the new order!
I sparkle with vitality and force
Why,
Fools of fear
Do you want me to burn inside the dead?
Hahahahahaha!
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