Murder

Gehenna started as a promising band with a fine sense for atmospheric black metal. The flickering melodies as well as the more brutal eruptions of their first official releases almost never failed to generate a dark aura. Brutality was not a taboo, but the group usually worked with other means. And (applause, applause) Gehenna were not lazy, they developed steadily. What made it difficult was the fact that they ran in the wrong direction. This situation culminated in "Murder" which was the last album before the band took a hiatus of five years.

This collection of dissonant chords is the highly impressive demonstration of a band that shits on its talent while making crude sounds. Gehenna stumble through the mediocre tunes as if they were absolute beginners. Lurching from one forgettable line to the next, brutality seems to be their new and only friend. Unfortunately, the band does not realize that it wastes its time in bad company.

First of all, the vocals suck. The mechanized voice is not able to contribute a grain of charisma. Neither variable nor diabolic, these vocals just want to sound as inhumane as possible. Any type of vocal lines is omitted. It is almost unbelievable that a formation, which proved its song-writing skills on former works impressively, fails to realize the unsuitability of its doing. Yet it is a fact that the insubstantial vocals match with the meaningless guitar work in a very sad way. Whenever a more or less acceptable line shows up, it gets quickly killed by the next break. But do not mourn for the dead harmonies excessively. Their number is extremely limited. Fortunately, the same applies to the amount of the gruesome guitar solos.

To get to the heart of the issue, Gehenna failed completely in terms of song-writing. The playtime of 31 minutes, which is artificially extended by an absolutely useless intro and the rerecording of "Master Satan", indicates the amazing lack of musical ideas. Speaking of "Master Satan", this tune from the year 1998 tramples the other songs into the grave. Its vibrant riff at the beginning guarantees a certain quality level and makes this tune to the best track of the album. But as the old saying goes, among the blind a one-eyed is the king. Well, I have to mention a further "one-eyed song" in order to stay fair. "The Dead" finalises the album and that is a positive thing per se. Nevertheless, this marks the only new track that presents a violent mix of fury and evilness. It opens wide its throat and shows that Gehenna have not completely forgotten how to compose a fairly violent song. Too little, too late.

With regard to the compositions, I can hardly believe that anybody wants to be informed about the details of the production. Anyway, it is an acceptable, typical death metal sound, neither outstanding nor lousy. The question still remains, however, why these tunes were produced at all.

Unsettled by the option to continue repeating themselves, Murder represents a somewhat new direction, an urbanization of Gehenna's sound for the 21st century. Many of their Norwegian peers had also undergone such transitions, resulting in the divisive new sounds for Emperor, Mayhem, Enslaved, and so forth, but Gehenna, being somewhat below those acts on the radar, had a little extra space to work in. Unfortunately, Murder seemed rather to 'dumb down' the band than improve their lot in the scene, and it's in my opinion the worst full-length of their career. The band have kept only small traces of their black metal past, instead forging a lot of death/thrash riffs, and this was not that unusual a choice (Myrkskog had a similar transformation for their sophomore).

However, what plays out on Murder is not quality thrash, but more akin to the rather crappy, thrash/groove sounds of the 90s, made popular through bands like Pantera, Machine Head and Skinlab, with perhaps a fraction of the modern Slayer. This manifests in a bunch of truly boring palm/mute thrash grooves cycling around small series of notes that feel predictable and more than a little 'tough guy' in translation, exploding into a dissonant chord here or there as in the title track or "The Crucified One". Granted, Gehenna do not prove inept at this style, and it's not nearly so annoying as many of the deservedly mocked or forgotten failures of that mixed decade, but it's difficult to soak in one of the faster, blasted tremolo sequences they have culled from their past, and then switch off to some vapid, dull breakdown. Another issue I took here is the vocals, they're fashioned more in that groove/industrial angst redolent of several bands I listed above, and they seem to hover a bit too low next to the guitars.

Speaking of the guitars, it is their boxy, huge tone which helps rescue this album from a one way vacation to the shit pile, because no matter how much I disliked about half the riffs on the album, the mere sound of them helps compensate for their lackluster showing of creativity. In short, the production here is superior to the songwriting. "Master Satan", a track drafted forward from their Deadlights EP, is positive writhing with aggression, and "Devout Dementia" has some refined, eerie slower riffs which propel it to the top of the crop in terms of survivability. I've seen some people refer to this album as 'death metal' on the whole, but there are really only traces of that. No, this is pretty pure brickhouse, neckbreaking thrash from the mid 90s with a few bursts of Gehenna's black metal fundamentals, mediocre lyrics, and unfortunately this hybridization does not pan out entirely in the record's favor. Not bad if you want a 'black metal' Biohazard or Machine Head, but otherwise I wouldn't waste my time.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

I'm going to be the odd man out here, as this is my first real experience with Gehenna. I had heard some single songs on compilations and such, and thought they sounded like a pretty typical Norwegian symphonic black metal band. This is the first full album by them that I have experienced, and I have to say that they can come up with some good death metal as well - and got to this point before Myrkskog, Zyklon and Blood Red Throne.

This album doesn't waste time with frills or being overly technical - this is definitely more of a "rip the throat out and watch the bastard bleed" affair. This is pretty brutal for something out of Norway, considering most of the world was seeing Norway as the black metal capital of the world at the time. The album itself is solid: nothing really groundbreaking, but it's still an enjoyable listen that zips by pretty fast.

Vocally, I am amazed that a band that used to play black metal can pull off these vocals. These are solid death metal vocals, with only a hint of that blackened rasp sneaking in. The guitars are very riff-oriented, though there is usually at least one solo per song to add an extra dimension to the mix. Blod's drumming is more than competent, keeping up with the death metal pace and adding some extra stops / starts, time changes and fills when the song would call for it. The production is a little muddy, but not enough to distract from the songs.

Overall, this impressed me for what it is: Norwegian death metal that was done correctly. If Morbid Angel were from Scandinavia and focused less on the leads, this is probably what it would sound like. Needless to say, this is a worthy album for a fan or death or black metal can enjoy, and should proudly own. After all, Satan makes a few appearances here, so it's not like the black metal influence is completely gone. Cadaver may have been one of the first death metal bands in Norway, but Gehenna is the first one to get it right.

Gehenna returns this year with a new album for Moonfog. Titled 'Murder' this album portrays with conviction its title. Pursuing its fusion of Death and Black Metal, this time Gehenna went for a full blasting apporach eclipsing most of its Black Metal aesthetics. Overly short and to the point, all the songs on this new album act here as a straight punch in your face and ears. The production is solid yet quite dirty and gives this band a breath of freshness I rarely see in Death Metal these days, preventing Gehenna to sound too technical or clinical as many other bands do, intentionnaly or not. The vocals are surprisingly low in the final mix and coming out much more shouted than growled, which is not a bad thing. Further down in the mix are the keyboards who once acted as a main instrument on their previous albums but now serves only as a stylistic ornamention tool. The riffs shreds and the drums are blasting but what is striking me most is the fast double-bass druming which is simply relentless.

The overall feel I get from listening to this explosive aural assault is imagining Slayer going a little bit more over the top in a stripped-down and more butal approach. While Moonfog openly claimed that Gehenna was the missing link for someone who didn't knew where to go after Slayer, I can see I wasn't wrong in my first impression. While surely not innovating here or flirting with avant-garde material, Gehenna decided to offer us killer cuts built on a tested yet proved formula which most of the time remains clearly effective. Brutal, vicious and uncompromisingly devastating, 'Murder' is one of the best album to fuse Death and Black Metal and get out of it with a killer end result, something missing in the current flow of releases trying to achieve this goal.