Paramaecium
Exhumed of the Earth

I never expected to find this little-known album, created by an equally obscure band, at a stall of a street vendor who regularly attends metal concerts held in various locations around Lombardy.

We’re talking about truly underground stuff, music not suited for all tastes nor for all metalheads.

Oh yes, because the Australian Paramaecium, besides offering the most unfortunate metal subgenre, are also Christians and have set their faith to music and words.

As for their religious beliefs, I honestly don't care much. Music, on the other hand, is the central element.

Paramaecium was an Australian death-doom band led by drummer Jayson Sherlock, already in action with deathsters Mortification and with the bizarre and extremely violent “Christian black metal” project called Horde.

A prolific musician, as well as a great man of faith who made the more extreme musical genres his tool of "evangelization."

Listening to "Exhumed Of The Earth," one cannot help but notice the influence of sacred monsters like the earliest Cathedral, Decomposed, and My Dying Bride. Slow, dark, and heavy music like a boulder, accompanied by suffocating growl vocals. But there’s more.

In the first track, which lasts a full seventeen minutes, you can also hear violins, female voices, and a baby's cry. The opening track, in fact, is the longest and the most cryptic of the entire album. But, I urge you, do not underestimate the others!

"The Killing," the second track, shows a more aggressive attitude, so much so that it echoes the offering of Paradise Lost's first album.

With "Untombed," we return to slowed-down and catacombal rhythms. Again, an alternation between death and doom in the next two acts. But it is in the final "Removed Of The Grave" that those elements mentioned at the beginning reappear. Female voice, of course, but also acoustic arpeggios and a delightful flute. Then, as usual, pachydermic riffs and death vocals.

The album was released in 1993 by the Swiss Witchunt Records. Composition-wise, it cannot be considered superior to the work of the overseas masters but surely places itself in continuity with what has been proposed by the gloomy British figures.

If you've loved gems like "Forest Of Equilibrium" or "Serenades," this "Exhumed Of The Earth" could turn out to be an enjoyable listen. For the others... look elsewhere!