Messiah
Rotten Perish

THE REVIEW

- The World of the Living and the World of the Dead -

On April 18, 1857, Allan Kardec (pseudonym of a famous French philosopher) published a book that would lay the foundations for a controversial and mysterious phenomenon: communicating with the world of the dead, also known as Spiritism. Title: "The Book of Spirits."

In 1992, a Swiss Death Metal Band named Messiah, with several good albums to their credit, revisited some of these theories, creating one of the most intense records in the history of extreme Metal: "Rotten Perish"

Guitarist/founder Remo Broggi is not the typical young musician interested in the lighter side of the instrumentalist's craft. Quite the contrary.

He questions the great themes of life and death and, fascinated by spiritist and transcendent theories, creates a Concept destined to spark debate in the years to come.

The album's intro, entitled "Prelude: Act Of Faith", is something completely detached from the prevailing 90s Death Metal trend, made of dark symphonies and demon invocations.

The voice of a child (almost like an angel) supported by one of the most poignant arpeggios ever heard introduces the various characters, with their (sad) stories and their ascension towards a divine dimension?

Perhaps... The cover seems eloquent on the subject.

Yet the band plays with the doubt that is present in any living being on this earth: after an existence of suffering, horrors, cruelties, anxieties, what awaits us beyond the threshold of earthly life?

"For Those Who Will Fail" is a manifesto of anger and disappointment in a Death/Thrash sauce.: "God created a world, a world of injustice, a world of distrust He created humans, humans of prejudice, humans with selfish-ness He forgot the justice, justice of humanity, justice of equality. You created our faults, pain in our bodies, weakness of our brains".

"Living With A Confidence" are the intimate and terrible thoughts of a person who knows they must die. The central refrain inevitably leaves a mark, but the entire piece is imbued with transcendent (high) inspiration.

"Raped Bodies" is the dark evolution of a restless spirit that will inevitably know murder and blood. What fate awaits their pains and sins?

The album also drinks from oases of serenity and peace like "Lines Of A Thought Man" with its ancestral-flavored arpeggios.

But the Death Metal (truly technical and rich in tempo changes) returns forcefully with "Condemned Cell": once again the rage and violence of a soul torn by a life of suffering and the desire for an "other" existence.

"Anorexia Nervosa", "Deformed Creatures", "Alzheimer's Disease", is a Thrash/Death trilogy tinged with Prog inventions and themes that (already from the titles), are suffocating and debatable. "Ascension Of A Divine Ordinance" is the conceptual/musical epilogue of Messiah.

But will this be the ascension?

Will there be a light?

Will there be our lord of heaven?

The living are not given to know...