Sinister
Hate

I have long hesitated whether to include this review in the "Discovering Forgotten Death Metal" series; the final decision, as you might guess, was to include it despite the release year of this work being the upper limit I set in my "plan of work." So here's the twelfth episode.

The Sinister: ah, the Sinister! In my opinion, the Sinister are the European counterpart to Monstrosity; beyond the "annals" of Death Metal history, no one talks about them, despite their fundamental importance to the genre. Like Monstrosity, who only started gaining attention after Gorge Fisher left them for Cannibal Corpse, Sinister's name only began to be heard after this "Hate", marking the beginning of their downfall.

Coming from the Netherlands, one can say they were true pioneers of European Death (not to be confused with the Melodic Death of the Scandinavian area) from 1990 to 1995; you might be wondering then why I decided to review what could be called Sinister's "farewell" album instead of bringing to light some past work like the beautiful "Cross The Styx," "Diabolical Summoning," or some other EP from their vast early production. The answer is simple, because this is the most unique, it is the album that most represents the soul of Sinister and one of the highest peaks of European Death (forget "Left Hand Path").

There would already be much to say about the publication year of "Hate", 1995; a really lackluster year for Death Metal, marking the end of the first great wave (from 1988 to 1994) and the beginning of the second, which would bring Brutal Death to the fore. In a year like 1995, there were those who were playing Death and were in a transitional phase, balancing between old and new (Morbid Angel "Domination," Deicide "Once Upon The Cross," Carcass "Swansong," Death "Symbolic" Incantation "The Forsaken Mourning Of Angelic Requiem" to name a few), and those who tried to open new paths (Cryptopsy "Blasphemy Made Flesh," Suffocation "Pierced From Within," Deeds Of Flesh "Trading Pieces" Skinless "Swollen Heaps"): Sinister can be placed among the former, the undecided ones, who would make a trial album after which they would necessarily have to make a decision. And so it was, a disastrous decision, alas, that forever distanced them from the sound of this great album that I am about to review.

I must point out that while today the Netherlands and Belgium are very active countries in the Death Metal scene (Aborted, Leng T'Che, Disavowed, Pyaemia, Prostitute Disfigurement, and many others that escape me at the moment), at the time they were a real dead zone; in Scandinavia, practically any Garage Band (Black, Death, or Melodeath) could get a contract, while in our area, it was really tough to emerge and if things are different today, we owe it to the Gorefest and this great band that for a handful of years made the Netherlands known to Death Metallers.

Technically speaking, Sinister were never champions even though they always delivered good performances to their audience.

The guitarist, far from being defined a "Guitar Hero," certainly doesn't make a bad impression and, while not resorting to the most difficult solutions, manages to come up with "pleasant" riffs that have nothing to envy from those of other Death Metal Bands. Powerful, sometimes dark, always original; these are the characteristics of the six-string parts in "Hate".
Better is the bassist's performance who, due to the absence of another guitar, makes an effort not to feel its absence; audible throughout the entire album, standing out with the breaks that are often heard in a Death record. The drums are perhaps the instrument that left me most disappointed on this CD; although the musician proves to be adequate, the complete lack of personal creativity makes him a rather sedentary drummer unable to give sparks to the songs. In short, if things were to depend on him, "Hate" would be a flat and boring album: the usual Blast Beats, the usual four-four rhythms or at most triplets, the usual rolls, countertimes almost entirely banned.

The singer, on the other hand, is good; a nice deep yet powerful Growl as true authentic Death Metal requires.

I must mention the presence of arrangements (I am not aware they had a keyboardist) sometimes absolutely spot-on, sometimes a bit drawn out, which give a lot (and I repeat a lot) of personality to the entire work. And perhaps this is the distinctive feature of "Hate", the great personality; you can search far and wide but you will not find an album so attached to the traditions of the genre and at the same time so epic, evocative, and to some extent authentically dark. This is also contributed by a production that favors mid tones and gives a good dose of echo to both the instruments and the voice (but without ever making the LP a farce).

"Awaiting The Absu", besides being, in my opinion, Sinister's gold medal, is perhaps the song best suited to testify what I just said: gloomy, yet majestic and not weak for this. The space given to melody is little, but even without resorting to it, Sinister manage to create an atmosphere, a mood particularly charged with "hate" that cannot be confused with that (often non-existent) of many other works of the same trend.

This is why I chose to review "Hate": because beyond the only fair technique, beyond the songs put together in a fairly traditional way (verse, pre-chorus, chorus etc), it is perhaps one of the last gasps of Death Metal properly called: Death will die within a couple of years and be reborn from its ashes under the name Brutal Death, although we will never again have the gloomy, esoteric, and catchy Metallum Mortis of the beginning. This album is one of the tombstones of Death Metal; listen to songs like "Embodiment Of Chaos" or "To Mega Therion" and you will hear the last words of the extreme genre that made history in the early nineties. An album that, beyond its actual value, has much to say from a musical historical perspective; as I said for Disincarnate, it should be heard at least once in a lifetime.