Must admit I've never been a huge fan of Akercocke, but I was a big fan of their former band Salem Orchid. I have a couple of tapes with loads of demo, rehearsal and live tracks. The quality is mostly abysmal, but the tracks are brilliant. Awesome band. Some of the riffs cropped up later in Akercocke.

I also have a couple of tapes of a little known band/project called Church of Satan that briefly existed between Salem Orchid and Akercocke (it seems to have actually been a formative version of Akercocke). The tracks on these tapes are also amazing, really raw and brutal but experimental Death Metal.

Where could one hear these said tapes?

I have everything except Rape of the Bastard Nazarene, and that's because I can't find it anywhere.

Some of their stuff genuinely gives me chills, like when I first heard the chorus to A Skin For Dancing In or the last couple of minutes of Horns of Baphomet. So you can probably tell that Goat of Mendes is my favourite.

I have never heard a band quite like them before; they're very original in their combination of black metal, death metal, ambient, jazz etc (and the list goes on...).

I missed them a couple years back when they played Tijuana. But back then I was only sort of into them.

Same here, I didn't know much of them at the time; added to the fact that they were playing a festival of sorts with plenty of terrible bands means that I didn't have the motivation to see them.

I like the more the more progressive they get - I still have a hard time going between Antichrist and Words... though.

Haha, it looks like something from a Monty Python sketch.

On topic, I really enjoy the Words... album, and I think their blend of black an death metal is great, but as some have previously said, their guttural vocals tend to turn me off a little, but I like the shriekings and the clean parts. Oh and the suit thing is fucking badass.

I may upload them to a blog at some point when I've cleaned them up a bit. I'll let you know...

Akercocke are awesome I have Antichrist, Words That Go Unspoken and Goat Of Mendes, will probs get Choronzon at some point. Antichrist is definitely my favourite, would probs be one of my favourite albums ever if they'd sorted the production out. Only real thing that annoys me about this band are the completely indecipherable gutteral vocals, I like their lyrics but with that vocal style he could be singing about mowing the lawn for all I know :S Great band though.

I only have "Words that Go Unspoken..." but I love it. Fantastic album all around. I can't get enough of Shelter From the Sands, its easily my favorite song off of the record.

That interview is absolute gold. "Akercocke, why are you laughing? WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT THIS MAN?"

Best metal band in the world imo.

I'd also be interested in those if you manage to put them up.

Count me in too...

Their getting more and more progressive by the album it appears. I liked Antichrist alot but I think that's as far as they should go with that direction. I hope the next one will be more like Chronozon again.

Probably the only band I've heard blast over an acoustic part (Axiom from the new one). It suprisingly sounds really awesome too.

Oh yes, this bit of the song was excellent, probably my favourite song from the album.

Yeah i would like to experiment doing that with my band.

I think they're great, and that they've been getting better with each release. The earlier albums (GoM and Choronzon), while still good, seems to be suffering from the syndrom "we've got billion of ideas that would be awesome, but don't know how to execute them properly". Imo it's not until Antichrist that they seem to mesh the ideas with the songwriting in a proper way.

The reviews of Choronzon are not particularly favourable, it seems. I don't own that one, so I can't say, but I've seen the video to Leviathan and find it to be quite a cool little song.

I was surprised when I saw how low the review of Choronzon was. I would give it an 85%, no question.

Akercocke are an amazing band. I think all their albums are different and good. I like thier early albums, but the newer stuff is just as good. I remember I listened to "Words That Go Unspoken.." pretty much nonstop after it was released. I'd really liked Choronzon and was amazed they did an album that topped it. Antichrist is excellent as well, a great follow up to WTGUDTGU.

Akercocke's only good album is Words that Go Unspoken, Deeds that Go Undone, IMO. Shelter From the Sand is truly a masterpiece. The first 3 albums aren't that great and Antichrist still doesn't match up to Words.

The only problems I have with them is that they get too cheesy and stupid sometimes and Mendonca's vocals are always forgettable.

i fucking love akercocke so much saw them on my 19 birthday this year, what a great birthday it was.

I would have to say Goat of Mendes was my favourite album followed by words that go unspoken. I think cronozon is quite avergae but it does have some great songs on there.

I've read about Akercocke a lot but only heard Antichrist and a couple other songs so far. Antichrist showcases some very refined song-craft and Satanism, but the production is garbage. Too muted and the drums are triggered to the moon and back. I'll have to grab a couple other albums.

Something that I don't understand and hope to rectify with a review of my own if I ever get around to it. That album is brilliant.

Choronzon to me has always seemed to get mixed reviews. I'm right in the middle of the road as I see it to be a fine album, sure, but I wouldnt go as so far as to say that that its my favorite by any means. Just a solid release.

For those that were interested earlier, you can check out the Church Of Satan rehearsal tape HERE.

For the record, I have a letter from David Gray where he says I can "pass on copies to any traders or relevant parties". You can view this letter HERE. I've blocked out his address just in case he still lives there!

David Gray seems like a cool guy, thanks for posting this! I enjoy his writings on the Akercocke website.



What is the point of such an acronym . . .

Here are some of the hilarious comments in that video on Akercocke:

"them 2 guys have had 2 much wine or blood maybe"

"ban that music and game it's pure evil"

"that's not music. it's people screaming. anyone can do that."

Strange that people say Choronzon gets bashed now days. I remember it being pretty popular when it was released. I've never heard a Akercocke in full though.

Cheers man!

Surely you've heard these types of common misunderstanding before...

The only album that i like from them is The Goat Of Mendes.
Never been able to get into the later stuf

Of course I have, actually just the last one. The first two I've heard been used as stereotyping ignorant anti-metal folks, but I didn't really think people were stupid enough to believe it.

I've heard people say that, but why? I've always found Jason's clean vocals to be much more powerful sounding that Mikael's. Or is it the use of more acoustic parts? Even with this, I've found that when Opeth does it, it sounds "wimpy", or halfway done (I still like Opeth, but acknowledge this flaw). I've found that Akercocke makes better use of these parts.
So what is it?

The same thing happened to Akercocke that happened to Opeth. They had an awesome style and flow going then lost it all somewhere. Choronzon, for me, is their best album. It has atmosphere, brutality, a sense of purpose and meaning and is just crushes perfectly throughout. Words was pretty good though I could tell that they had fallen. The songs were too adventurous for their own good (they were still good though) but they lost the sense of foreboding and darkness that their previous albums had. Antichrist was abysmal. The more black metal stylings of Rape and Goat were excellent though the production seemed to stifle some of the ideas they were attempting to portray yet these albums maintained a sense of urgency and the grime on them was awesome. Choronzon would have benefited from some of this grime slightly.

Words... is one of my top 5 favorite albums. It gets a lot of play-time in my car. To me, it's like what metalcore wishes it was: brutal, melodic, and epic. Sheltered From The Sand will get stuck in my head for days!

I can't relate to this at all... Words... has a sense of purpose like few other albums I've heard.

I'm not a huge fan, but Choronzon is an excellent album. I have yet to properly listen to their other albums.

Thank you sir. I am very interested in this.

I've been a fan of this band for a long time, and I remember people did not like this band much before Choronzon came out. To think that album is getting bad reviews now is strange to me, its awesome. Enraptured By Evil is my favorite song by them, followed by Axiom. I agree about this song, the blasting over acoustic parts was awesome!

I actually really liked Antichrist.

Of course it isn't as dark and foreboding as the earlier stuff was (and I will admit that 'Distant Fires Reflect in the Eyes of Satan' is trying to be but failing) but I still can't resist Jason's vocals (both guttural and clean) or David Gray's blastbeats. They're a really talented band, all in all - maybe the next one will be even better.