There is something rotten in Switzerland. Yes, there must be something evil disturbing the existence of our peaceful neighbors beyond the Alps. Something that evidently eludes our Mediterranean eyes.

What, we wonder, could ever have led the land of well-trimmed lawns, chocolate, and cuckoo clocks (just to fall into clichés) to generate monstrous entities like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Messiah, Samael, Sadness, Alastis (just to name the most well-known)?

I venture a rather simplistic socio-psychological interpretation: perhaps it is order itself that exacerbates you, maybe it's the lack of external threats that forces you to look within and probe the rot that lies within you. "Enough of these damned lawns!" Tom G. Warrior might have snapped one day, deciding to give life to the most monstrous entity born from the metal of the eighties (Bathory permitting, which nonetheless deserves a separate discussion).

It's as if the only antidote to Order were Chaos and Annihilation. And perhaps, the unique and unhealthy mix of our Swiss friends lies precisely in a healthy and physiological desire to make noise, inevitably tainted by the ghosts that emerge from the introspective effort induced. And so, while Slayer's music, a symbolic extreme act of mid-eighties, remained (and still remains) music of terror (the threats Araya talks/yells about are always external, whether it's a mine exploding between your legs or the knife of a serial killer ready to slit your throat), the music of Celtic Frost, on the other hand, is music of horror, of intangible discomfort, as it speaks to us of a threat that comes from Elsewhere, we do not know exactly where, probably from ourselves.

This is the fundamental paradigm shift that Celtic Frost, and with them the entire metal genre, accomplished, leading to the nihilism of true black metal and the obsessions of the most depressing doom: a sort of introversion process where metal turns toward itself the violence always celebrated against others. The music of Celtic Frost is indeed an implosion, an introjection of dark forces, an inner turmoil that externally translates into Apocalypse, megalomania, a sense of the abyss: every assault of violence is actually a punch in the void, a fight against an invisible enemy, perhaps against one's own shadow. An adventure that inevitably culminates in its own Defeat (I can see it, tired and lost, Fisher in a suit and tie lying in his coffin of solid Swiss chocolate!). The revolution of Celtic Frost is ultimately having combined the aggressiveness of extreme metal (providentially purging it of Venom's drinking tendencies) with the decadent (and also romantic) lacerations of the dark universe (with that touch of Kabbalah that never hurts!).

This indispensable premise introduces the thrash metal of Coroner, other Swiss on the verge of a nervous breakdown, who, precisely from the bases laid by fellow Celtic Frost, embark on an extremely personal and exciting journey. Unfortunately, I add, ignored by the general public.

Disbanded in the early nineties in general indifference, Coroner, it can be said, did not miss a beat in their rather short career: starting from a virulent thrash metal of evident Teutonic mark (that of Destruction and Kreator, just to be clear), but much more technical and already soaked in the obsessions inherited from the early Celtic Frost, in the span of five unmissable albums, they were able to set up an increasingly refined and intelligent proposal, without ever renouncing the word of metal.

From the violence of the formidable "R.I.P.," already tinged with those macabre settings that would increasingly characterize the Swiss lineup (just consider the choice of putting urns with the names of the three band members instead of the usual photos), they gradually arrived at mature and cerebral albums like the masterpiece "Mental Vortex" and the impenetrable "Grin," already outside the classic thrash canons, and which I consider one of the most ingenious albums in all of metal.

"No More Color," labeled 1989, is the third album, somewhat the watershed between the violence of the beginnings and the disturbing atmospheres that will characterize the maturity albums. That we are not facing a trivial proposal, we already understand from the unusual yet effective cover, which, instead of various satans and slaughter, shows us in a pose of grim despair, drummer Marquis Marky, lyricist and visionary genius of the band (indeed his are the lyrics, the covers, and the scenic ideas that animated the devastating live performances). What will hit our ears is a thrash very violent and extremely technical, on which hovers a gloomy atmosphere of decay and perdition. Without forgetting a touch of cynicism and black sarcasm. A seeing-not-seeing that never descends into banal horror effects, but which preserves the pragmatic language of metal, tinging it here and there with dark suggestions.

The three are on familiar terms with their instruments: the pulsating and relentless bass of Ron Royce, the continuous evolutions of the aforementioned Marquis Marky, but especially the incredible guitar of Tommy T. Baron, certainly one of the most gifted musicians in metal history, skilled in weaving lethal rhythms and in flaunting solos of exquisite finesse. I wouldn't want to say something foolish, but the guy reminds me more than once of the master Jimi Hendrix (paid tribute to, among other things, with the cover of "Purple Haze" in the previous "Punishment for Decadence"): the touch is sharp and precise as the genre requires, but if for a moment we strip it of the typical sharpness of metal, our riffing reveals itself as a real torrent, far from the rigid schematics of thrash that foresee the continuous roar of bone-breaking riffs. Baron is actually a relentless forge of intricate riffs, sudden flights, lightning solos, neoclassical scales, and it all happens so fluidly and tastefully that it indeed seems like we are closer to the most celebrated left-handed rock artist than to people like King and Hanneman. To complete the picture, the metaphysical grunt of bassist Ron Royce, whose vocals, if not up to the quality of the played parts, contribute to the whole a sense of anger mixed with repression and bitterness, which certainly does no harm in a context such as the one we are talking about.

The music of Coroner is not easy, after all, and perhaps that's why the general public has always ignored them: Coroner doesn't offer catchy choruses, they don't throw us ultra-mosh breaks to make us slam into the pogo; they primarily focus on atmosphere, crafting anxiety-inducing scenarios with the precision of a surgeon: dark arpeggios that magically open in the middle of the outbursts, Wagnerian tappings that suddenly open doors to other worlds, hypnotic rhythms that drag the listener into the darkest paranoia. It's a Kafkaesque thrash that Coroner presents, we could say, a labyrinth pervaded by invisible threats and unsettling omens. A sharp knife that cuts the soul as well as the flesh. Like the deadly opener "Die by my Hand", a mad soliloquy where the murderer's hand is actually the Grace we receive that frees us from a much slower and worse death which is Life. Or the raw scenarios sketched in "No Need to be Human", a desolate fresco on the miserable state of dehumanization that the human race is experiencing, a glaring example of how the obsessions Coroner talks to us about are not so far from the reality we live every day.

Only 34 minutes are enough for Coroner to take us to their unhealthy dimension, a relentless pounding that leads us to the concluding "The Last Entertainment", a sort of "Call of the Ktulu" from the underworld, opened by somber keyboards and carried by an ominous recitation that leaves us with the impression of having witnessed the end of the world.

Many missed them on the first round: it's time for those people to redeem themselves and retrace their steps. Because missing out on Coroner means missing out on the best.

Tracklist Samples and Videos

01   Die by My Hand (03:46)

02   No Need to Be Human (04:30)

03   Read My Scars (04:31)

04   D.O.A. (04:19)

05   Mistress of Deception (04:57)

06   Tunnel of Pain (04:29)

07   Why It Hurts (03:47)

08   Last Entertainment (03:59)

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