Messiah
Underground

Those who in 1992 loved spending their afternoons hanging around in shabby provincial stores will undoubtedly remember the cover of an album that used to sit collecting dust under the letter M on those shelves, which together aspired to be a modest metal section in a general context. I'm talking about "Rotten Perish," do you remember? That bluish cover with the angel in the foreground pointing the way to Eden for a cripple with crutches, while other cripples were being led in a gloomy procession towards the Afterlife, that disc of light that stood high in the sky, symbolizing the deserved reward after a life of hardship and pain.

It was the Messiah of the good Remo Broggi, vintage death metal from nearby Switzerland: with "Rotten Perish," our guys reached their artistic peak. By means of a classic yet atmospheric death metal, the Messiah thus delivered their contribution to the history of death metal, staking what appeared to be their particle of immortality, only to then plummet back into anonymity and embark on a rapid extinction.

More than twenty years later (damn how time flies), I'm not here to talk to you about "Rotten Perish" (today I wouldn't touch that album with a ten-foot pole, either because of the disinterest in classic death metal that marks my present or the anxiety the mere sight of the cover causes me – eh... I'm no longer at the age – and its murky contents), but about "Underground," the swansong of Messiah, their last work released two years later, with a completely revamped lineup and an equally transformed sound.

It was the year 1994, a time when even talking about classic death metal bored the insiders: the Death of "Individual Thought Patterns" had once and for all closed the subject to possible retorts, while already enlightened bands like Pestilence, Cynic, and Atheist were shifting the genre's stylistic coordinates towards less orthodox shores. But in truth, the entire extreme scene was looking around: Sweden was already setting up a more melodic form of death metal (At The Gates, Edge of Sanity, Dark Tranquillity, In Flames, etc.), while in England the gothic/doom scene was already a reality (Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Anathema, etc.); in short, a thirst for evolution was imposing itself worldwide, cornering the old school bands, destined to either remain steadfast in their ways at the risk of premature stylistic obsolescence or grab the bull by the horns and venture into the risky pursuit of freshness.

The Messiah (also supported by a cultural/musical background certainly open to contamination – see bands like Celtic Frost and Coroner) opted for the latter path, strong with a technical prowess honed over four albums (the Messiah are certainly not novices, having originated in the year 1986). Broggi approaches his fifth work by dismantling half the lineup, retaining only Steve Karrer behind the drum kit, acquiring Oliver Koll on bass, and replacing the historic Andy Kaina at the microphone with none other than Christofer Johnsson, at the time still an unknown player in Carbonized and already the mastermind of Therion: yes, those Therion who would soon become champions of symphonic music in a death metal sauce.

But the fans of the seminal Swedish band can rest easy, as little of their favorite group is found within the grooves of this "Underground," if only because at the time the same Therion were heading up a still raw proposal (the still limping "Symphony Masses" had been released the previous year, while the "leap in quality" album "Lepaca Kliffoth" would come the following year): the only bond between the two bands is therefore merely the voice of Johnsson, not even a great singer to be honest, and it's no coincidence that he himself would be the first to manifest a certain unease behind the microphone, an object he would soon abandon after the release of the masterpiece "Theli," in which our hero's roar was already filtered sparingly amidst female sopranos and operatic choirs.

But although the young Johnsson's sloppy performance will not remain etched in bold letters in the annals of extreme music, it is a fact that his "not exactly canonically death" voice (occasionally, he will indulge in more ferocious growls, but for the most part, he will move in comprehensible vocalizations with continuous shifts in register, not denying even some exploration in clean singing) is confirmed as the essential novelty element housed in the Messiah's latest effort: a fresh breeze actively sought by the boss and master Broggi, who evidently felt the need to break away powerfully from the narrow confines of classic death metal of which he was a distinguished exponent.

So what does our Remo do? First of all, it must be said that, although the hand remains substantially Schuldiner-like, Broggi is a proficient guitarist, more in rhythm than in solo (few and irrelevant are the solo moments), an artist endowed with personality and driven by a communicative urgency made of neck-breaker riffs infused with a decadent and epic aura defining his stylistic mark. Karrer behind the drums provides him the necessary support, and together, the two (with a good rapport) create a robust and tense sound, a tribute to the old glories of the Teutonic thrash (Sodom above all) and shaken by apocalyptic visions (needless to recall the inevitable influence of fellow countrymen Celtic Frost), well complemented by the imaginative bass (when heard) of Koll (who, like all technically inclined bassists of the time, does not avoid falling into the trap of "how much I wish to be Steve Di Giorgio") and the tireless wandering of that half-cabalist, half-viking, Johnsson.

The album thus opens under the auspices of quintessentially Viking humors with the bursting opener "Battle in the Ancient North," a fierce gallop with a vigorous opening that draws us into a whirlpool of bloody clashes between pagans and Christians in Scandinavia a thousand years ago (but also on other fronts we will find, thematically, the imprint of the Therion mastermind). The sound of the Messiah in 1994 is undoubtedly lighter compared to the past, but it shines with renewed freshness, dynamism, and a groove that will certainly delight fans of burning eardrums.

The first part of the album whizzes by with short and captivating tracks that, however, do not succumb to the flattery of a formulaic song format, instead climbing into structures of a certain complexity, within which the band knows how to deliver more than one bullseye, thanks to the melodic talent inherent in the telluric guitar play of Broggi and the eclectic and theatrical flair of Johnsson at the microphone. Among these early tracks, I'd certainly mention the violent title track, a conceptual manifesto of the album (nothing but a j'accuse directed at those young death metal bands who, instead of daring, loved, behind a ridiculously arrogant pose, to ape the masters by slavishly repeating their ideas and demeaning the revolutionary charge of the seminal death metal).

But the real surprises (and they might not be good) begin with the eighth track, "The Ballad of Jesus," which incorporates techno/dance floor elements (!!!) combined with a puerile blasphemous lyric that will evoke more than a twinge of embarrassment in the listener. It is therefore the final poker of tracks that pushes the album (until then neatly stacked in the basin of a technical thrash, certainly not stingy in melodic solutions, nor indifferent to more classic hardcore regurgitations) towards the shores of experimentation. Thus, "Dark Lust" boasts a dark chorus with clean vocals and visionary poetry of acoustic incursions carving out paths in the blazing rocks of the metal, while the overwhelming "One Thousand Pallid Deaths" sums up in its five minutes all the dynamism boiling over in the hands and creativity of Broggi. Creativity that in the album's final portion unexpectedly fades behind the dirty banner of melancholy doom, in the tail of the just-cited track (in this case, yes, closer to the atmospheres of Therion), fading without resolution into the apocalyptic roar of the closing instrumental track, which carries the predictable name of "The End."

The courage and the premises underlying "Underground" are appreciated, even though the band's shift to stubbornly transmute their classicism into a more modern form is not always convincing. And not only for two or three unquestionably less successful tracks that end up weighing down the listening experience: like other bands emerging from the same soundscape with similar intentions (bands like Cancer, Morgoth, and Gorefest come to mind), the Messiah do not manage to fully shake off the essence of "old glory of classic death metal" and gracefully adhere to that paradigm of change that instead will mark the history of the extreme genre for other colleagues who were more incisive and less clumsy in harnessing the formidable forces of innovation available to them during those years.

And indeed, the fate of the Messiah will not be bright: after the low-key release of "Underground," Broggi will retire to private life, with the consolation that no one can certainly criticize him for not having at least tried.

FOR THOSE WHO WILL FAIL

ORA, UXOREM, NATURA