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Rating: "But why; but why the hell?!?"
Many times I have asked myself the aforementioned question over the years to try and provide a logical explanation for this genuine betrayal in music by the German label "Nuclear Blast"; there are no sensible answers I can provide. The collection, once again a double, is a complete mess in its entirety, apart from a few individual episodes.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a true musical betrayal by a record label that in the early nineties contributed significantly to spreading Death Metal worldwide. A myriad of bands were produced and launched onto the market that have made the history of the most extreme Metal; just look at the lineup of groups involved in the previous five destructive collections. Then we arrive at the year 2000, and this atrocity is published, the sixth, the worst of all. From that point on, I lost interest in "Nuclear Blast," although I remain morbidly attached to its golden years.
The first three songs are unprecedentedly ugly, from my point of view, that is. About fifteen embarrassing minutes, giving me hives. It's the Power-Speed of Helloween that kicks things off (go to hell...): an empty, fake sound, with that falsetto voice that irritates me and those choruses that increase my discomfort even more; but it's just the beginning because it gets worse. Stratovarius (or Crapavarius as an old friend of mine calls them) manage to raise my blood pressure and stomach acidity. I'll just say that I even managed to see them live, a long time ago at a festival in Switzerland: such an unappealing sound that I wisely decided to move to the bar area.
But the top of the tops, in the opposite sense obviously from what has been written so far, is reached in the tacky Power-Epic of Hammerfall; a true headache overtaking me at this precise moment, I prefer not to say more about their inconclusive performance. For me, the worst band in Metal; that's enough. End of story...Damn...
A good part of the collection pays homage to these sounds I have never been able to stand; since the title of the work references death, I would have much preferred another type of more violent and extreme sounds.
Unfortunately, the negative notes are not over: there's also Black Metal, another horrendous music genre for my auditory system. So let's do ourselves harm by mentioning Gorgoroth and their wisely titled track "Incipit Satan": in terms of creativity, we're well beyond absolute zero; I'll stop here, it's better. (aaaarrrrggggghhhhhh.....).
Despite all the negativity expressed so far, I managed to find something good: Hypocrisy with the slow and ghostly "Fire in The Sky" and Dismember with the short and aggressive "Beyond Good & Evil." Returning to paths already trodden before, violent, crushing, and nasty. Death Metal at its best; not forgetting the artwork of deadly and nocturnal beauty. But this is not enough for a barely passing grade...Renegade...
Stay away, don't let yourselves be "conquered" by all this; trust GG (Allin).
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