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Rating: 1994 - In the hellish Norway of Burzum, Mayhem, and Emperor, the Christian band Antestor records their martyrdom/debut album, released only six years later by Endtime Productions.
The tracks are dark sermons and heartfelt prayers - My soul is screaming let me free / Take away this pain I see - and an instrumental track, played with abrasive riffs black & dry drum beats, screamed by the extraordinary voice of Molnes/Martyr (Spiritual Disease, Materialistic Lie, Searching) or enriched by keyboards - the piano opening of Depressed, the meditative synth of Thoughts - sometimes slowed by desolate arpeggios and oppressive doom tempo.
The album closes with a psalm to the sound of an organ sung by a woman's voice:
Be gracious to me o God
In Thy true love
In the fullness of Thy mercy
Blot out my misdeeds
Antestor plays supplications, invocations, fears, faith, and pains that stir the soul: Black Metal that goes to Heaven.
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Other reviews
By emanuele
"Martyrium is quite a peculiar album because it expresses contrasting feelings of love/hate with a focus on human sin rather than purely Christian reflections.",
"If you manage to overlook a not-so-clean recording and compositional flaws, you will still find a reasonably satisfactory album on the whole."
By DiX88
Martyrium can be defined, if not as the first example, perhaps the second of Unblack Metal or Christian Black Metal in history.
An essential album to have at all costs, a true cult for lovers of extreme sounds.
