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What Goes Down, Must Come Up
Okay, it seems like we're back up now. We had some technical difficulties due to a configuration change we were not made aware of by the server administrator(s). As you may have noticed, the first two CD reviews are up and the forums are open. We've got some features coming soon and the transition from blog to webZine is moving at full speed. Keep your eyes on this space for more mayhem and deviance. Labels: news Cradle of Filth - Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder  Cradle of Filth are a melodic black metal band from England. On this release, they are: Dani Filth (vocals), Paul Allender (guitars), Charles Hedger (guitars), Dave Pybus (bass), Martin &0138;karoupka (drums), Rosie Smith (keyboards), Mark Newby-Robson (keyboards), Sarah Jezebel Deva (backing and female operatic vocals), and once more featuring the guest narratives of the legendary Douglas Bradley of Hellraiser fame. Cradle of Filth return from the lighter and more accessible sound they embraced with Thornography and Nymphetamine to their more traditional, black metal influenced sound in Godspeed..., much to the delight of their core fan base.The Blood This is a concept album about fifteenth century serial killer Gilles de Rais [Wikipedia article]. We all remember the last time they did a concept album about a famous, historical nutter, right? Cruelty And The Beast was an epic masterpiece! They were thinking right in going with that formula again. Godspeed...is indeed masterful. It is Cradle of Filth true to form once more. The guitars get good and fast when they need to and carry truly dark melodies throughout. I will likely learn a couple of these to warm up with. Dani gives a better vocal performance than he has for a couple of albums, but what caught my ears the most was an increase in Sarah's involvement. This is something fans have been asking for for some time. The Piss While I am indeed gushing over their return from more pop-inclined realms, this release still has a few down sides. Dani Filth still is not hitting the ear-piercing highs like he used to. I'm not one to beg for a screeching cat fight, but it is his signature. There has been some speculation that this is the result of Roadrunner Records influence. It sure seems in line with RR's behavior in the past. They seem quite partial to bringing mainstream moderation upon once extreme acts. Douglas Bradley's narratives are always good, but these are not up to his usual par. Perhaps it is in acting as de Rais, different from previous 'voices' he has been, but they seem more to the cheese than his past performances with Cradle of Filth. Finally, while all of the above I've said about the guitars hold true, there is still too much Maiden and not enough black metal in the riffs. Oh, Gian Pyres, how we miss ye. The Judgement This is a step back in the right direction. Cradle of Filth should not and never be a Hot Topic-friendly, emo-pop accessible band. They should be bitingly violent while cruelly beautiful. They should not be the beloved of 13 year old, neo-mullet wearing mall-goths. The music should not be MTV-friendly. This album is a drop of hope that Cradle of Filth can resist the influence of Roadrunner Records and stay true to who they've always been. Godspeed On The Devil's Thunder belongs with the elder releases in regular playing rotation. While it is not Dusk..., or any of the Gian-era releases for that matter, it is exceptionally better than their recent offerings. I give it a nice four and a half stars.   Cradle of Filth website Cradle of Filth MySpace profile Labels: cd review, music, Skot Ceremonial Castings - Salem 1692  Ceremonial Castings is a melodic black metal band from Washington consisting of Jake Superchi (Lord Serpent, guitars & vocals), Nick Superchi (Old Nick, keyboards), Matthew Mattern (Bloodhammer, drums). According to their Wikipedia entry [link], Salem 1692 is a concept album about the Salem, Massachusetts witch executions in 1692CE. Lord Serpent and Old Nick claim to be descendants "...of the late Judge Ha(w)thorne...," a judge who presided over the trials. Meh.The Good The guitars carry their melodies quite well through the traditionally fast black metal riffing. The growled and screamed vocals are perfect for the atmosphere created by the music. Ceremonial Castings does a good job of mixing violent black metal with touches of epic sound and moments of moving slow-downs. The Bad Still, there were drawbacks to this release. The keyboards of "Old Nick" are adequate enough as background filler, but are mostly uninspired. The clean, operatic vocals, both male and female, sound hokey and forced. They feel more like an homage to other, more notable bands than an attempt to make their own mark. The Verdict Overall, Salem 1692 is listenable, and even enjoyable, if rather unoriginal. It stands up on its own but does not reach the anything exceptional to stand out from the very crowded barrage of melodic, symphonic black metal being released. I cannot justify giving this release more than three stars. Ceremonial Castings website Ceremonial Castings MySpace profile Labels: cd review, music, Skot Announcement: The DigitaLucifer WebZine And Forums The Webzine You read that title line correctly, folks. DigitaLucifer.Net is turning into a full-fledged webzine. We will cover music both local and global, publish a variety of literature, interviews, commentaries, artwork of many sorts, and offer various types of multimedia content. All of this will be provided for free. There will be some minimal advertising on the website and we will, at some point, offer some form of premium membership incentives. Suggestions? The conversion from personal site to full-featured webzine will occur piece-by-piece over the next month and should be out of beta by the first of 2009. The basic appearance of the website will remain the same. Some of the content will be restructured and streamlined. It should, in theory, be a painless process. Just in case there is some trouble, however, the month of December will be a beta period for testing. Contributors will include the editorial staff (Editor-In-Chief: Skot, Managing Editor: Evilyn, Associate Editor: Persephone) and a few 'regulars'. If you are interested in being a contributor, send your name, email address, why you want to be a contributor, and some sample work via this feedback form. The Forums The DigitaLucifer.net Forums are now open and ready for ye depraved masses to populate and textually fornicate your mutual thoughts. Get your collective arse over to http://forums.digitalucifer.net and sign up right now!!! It is where you'll need to go to communicate with our staff and, if you're so inclined, take a shot at becoming a contributing writer. Go! Now! I Remember Halloween I am still anxiously awaiting the announcement. Just sayin'. From Darkness To Disgust: A History of Morpheus Today, the 17th of October, 2008, marks the official 11th anniversary of the inception of Morpheus, a band that was permanently put to rest a little over a year ago. In honor of this date, I am going to give a brief history of the band, as I remember it. While I began making "music" (mixes of brief necrophiliac songs interspersed with am radio noise and samples) under the pseudonym of Morpheus in the Summer of 1997, a few months prior to the October 17th birth date, it was on the official date that I invited John Ellis, Jr., aka. Spanky Payne, then going by the stage name False Einstein, (so named for a particularly prided lack of intelligence) to join Morpheus and form a real band. Let me begin a little further back. For a little over a year, I had been playing guitar in a two-person industrial metal band called Caution with vocalist and keyboardist Soulburn. In the summer of 1997, around the same time I started a solo side project called Morpheus, Soulburn and I decided to open up to other members. John came in on bass, friend Josh Meighan joined as an additional guitarist, and Kyle L'Esperance was being courted as a possible drummer. We'd practice a small set and booked ourselves a Battle of the Bands style gig. The night before the gig, Soulburn decided he did not want to do it and dissolved the band. The rest of us decided to start a new band Flail Chest. After a few months of practice and song writing, we booked a girl's birthday party as our first gig. This was the infamous October 17th set that is considered to be the first Morpheus show. No members of Flail Chest showed up aside from John and myself. Determined to still carry on, we played our set just guitars, vocals and bass with numerous samples and much destruction. That night, angry at everyone else, we ended Flail Chest and I invited john into Morpheus.  While Necrosex is the eldest Morpheus song, having written it prior to John joining, the first song we wrote together was Chastities. I wrote the music and we wrote the lyrics together. Chastities was a heavy but slow tribute to a quite promiscuous friend of ours, Chasity, whom was in possession of rather pleasing endowments. That theme of sexual deviance soon mixed with gothic overtones, destructive tendencies and a strong anti-Christian sentiment to create the original Morpheus sound. Musical styles ranged from angry punk to simple thrash metal and experimental industrial. This sound lasted for the first few Morpheus cassette releases Systematic Release {1997), Abyss of Lust (1998), and el Nino de Luzbel (1998). Between 1997 and 1999, we played many small house-party shows for tiny crowds and amassed a reputation for utter destruction, crowd abuse and pure sadistic fun. Inspired by the ineffable GWAR, we took stage "slaves." These 'slaves' were fans who would come up on stage and beat each other up while we played. We would also abuse them. They were typically led by a female slave who would go by the stage name 'Dead Angel'. The most memorable incident was when we created a large wooden cross, laid it on the ground, littered broken glass over it and tied a slave down on it. We proceeded to spit and bleed on him. Our stage acts would lead to us being banned from playing all over town and picking up a reputation. Between 1998 and 1999, John dropped his second stage name, Anal Buttfuck, and began going by the moniker he would hold on to, Spanky Seamen Payne.Somewhere in 1999, we picked up drummer Wharg0ul and recorded the final, heaviest and best version of Chastities to date and a thrash piece called Fuck You. Eventually, the Wharg0ul moved west and things slowed down. We didn't record again until 2000. The first year of the new millennium was a transitional period for Morpheus. The old sound was left behind and we explored noise metal and relentless thrash sounds. A CD-R demo release was recorded featuring the beginning of this direction, and later a three-way split CD-R with CHUNK and Insane Brutal Nonsense solidified it. Between 1999 and 2001, Morpheus passed through so many changes in attitude and sound that it was barely recognizable as the same band anymore. All measure of darkness left the feel of the music, being replaced by chaos and depravity. In 2001, John and I picked up an off-and-on former member Peter "Spaz" Bolster (Peter Belial of Torrents of Death) to make the rotation (no one had an assigned position; we all switched around) three. We booked ourselves a Battle of the Bands style gig and, the day of the show, Peter had to leave for a family emergency. On the spot, we convinced local kid Ben Bushman to fill the shoes. The set was fun and chaotic. Ben practiced with us a few times but eventually lost interest and faded out. That's where Rob The Dead came in. Rob The Dead had been in local thrash/grunge band Twisted Chaos and had some drumming experience. He took the helm and rounded out what would be the definitive Morpheus line up for the next five years. We wrote a slew of new songs, played loads of local shows and had a lot of fun. Though we did the switching act for most of the time, I began spending the bulk of time on guitar, Rob with drums, and John became a front man. We played the first Punk in the Park mini-festival, organized by The Scams guitarist Mike Wierzbicki (now Mikey X of Fight Back). Toward the end of 2001, Morpheus came to a screeching halt.  Growing personal problems between John and myself culminated in a heated argument, resulting in John declaring the band broken up. In the months to follow, John started various side projects with Rob and the denizens of John's house, the infamous 107 Granger. It was in this period that Rob formed Psychotic Assault with Matt O'Brien. I played a "More Fee Us" set with a returned Wharg0ul on drums consisting of a few Morpheus songs reworked into death metal and a pair of lengthy death metal jams. My most notable project in that period was a blackened death metal three-piece called Black Chapel. This consisted of myself, Peter Belial and Wharg0ul. While we never played any gigs, we had an ep's worth of material written and practiced. Eventually, Wharg0ul moved west again and Black Chapel dissolved. In the summer of 2002, as I got ready to move to Burlington, VT, John approached me to reform Morpheus. I agreed and we did so just in time to play the second Punk in the Park mini-festival, this time organized by Tommy of Send More Cops. We played many local and backyard shows. Most notable of that year was the Halloween set played in the local parade on a dolly attached to a pickup truck. We were powered by a loud gasoline generator and went crazy. This tradition and pattern continued for the next few years. Each year was highlighted by the subsequent Punk in the Park sets (which John and I were organizing) in the summer and the Halloween parade. I had moved back to Rutland, VT and John moved out to Grafton, VT. In 2006, we picked up bass player Mike O'Holic, also of Broken Mindz. Practices and shows became few and far between. Spanky started forming side projects, Rob began focusing more on Psychotic Assault, and I eventually joined Psychotic Assault. This caused a lot of tension between John and myself, he reacting with jealousy towards the decision. I eventually began paying a lot more attention to Psychotic Assault as well, itself being a much more organized and active band, perhaps justifying some of the jealousy. The final Morpheus show took place on November 10th, 2006 in Gloucester, MA at The Art Space with The Jabbers and the Jonee Earthquake Band. John did some speed with The Jabbers before the set and Mike was good and drunk. Rob and I played a relatively tight set but, for the most part, John's vocal timing was far off. Incredibly angry, Rob and I decided that this just wasn't worth it anymore. For the next month we bounced around the idea of ending Morpheus. Personal differences between myself and John were mounting again. Eventually, it came to a head and John once more broke up Morpheus. This time, I was resolved to not go back. Morpheus had been dying for a long time and needed to be put to rest. It was over. It was one hell of a ride, but it could go no further. It is over. It will never be again.I would like to take a bit to thank those who helped us out in some way over the years. First and foremost, I want to thank John and Rob. After that: Whore-God the slave, Dead Angel (all of 'em), Josh Macabre, Jock Itch, Kyle, Lucy Skullfukkr, the whores of Hatezine, Wharmaster, Soulburn, Heidi Fallen Angel, Alex Balls, Mike O'Holic, Broken Mindz, Send More Cops, Jonee Earthquake and his band, Thorn, Mikey X, The Scams, Forest, Klara Raven, Flowers In The Attic, Josh Larose, all the bands we've played with, all the slaves we've beaten, all the people who've drank with us or blown us, all the groupies and fans we ever had and anyone who ever came to our shows. You made the ride what it was. Thanks. RIP. Morpheus b.1997 d.2007 "I am the nightmare." The Official Morpheus Website Labels: Editorial, music, Skot, wolves |
Literature Quoth Stoop not down to the dark world, Beneath which lies a faithless depth, And Hades dark all over, squallid, delighting in images, unintelligible, Precipitous, creaggy, a depth; Always rolling, always espousing an opacous, idle breathless body, And the light hating world, and the winding currents, By which many things are swallowed up. … Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below the earth; Drawing through the ladder which hath seven steps, Beneath which is the throne of necessity. -Chaldean Oracles of Julianus Daily Rotation + Add us to your Daily Rotation! 
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