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Paramæcium > Exhumed of the Earth > 1994, CD, Witchhunt Records > Reviews
Paramæcium - Exhumed of the Earth

The battle of Heaven and Earth - 71%

robotniq, September 13th, 2021

Christian iconography has an abiding influence on death/doom. Look at the album cover for "Exhumed of the Earth". The imagery is explicit, but it mirrors the genre's vibe so well that it doesn't reveal Paramæcium as a Christian band. In death/doom, any references to Christian iconography are usually filtered through the devilish prism of European Romanticism. The most famous example is of Paradise Lost naming themselves after John Milton's epic poem. That poem is full of Christian themes but doesn't feel much like Christian art. No lesser figure than William Blake said that Milton "wrote in fetters when he wrote of angels and God, but at liberty when of devils and hell, because he was of the Devil's party". In other words, the roots of the death/doom aesthetic lie in Romanticism, not in organised religion.

How is this relevant to Paramæcium? Well, "Exhumed of the Earth" must be the premier example of 'Christian death/doom'. The band's agenda is clear in both the song-titles and in the music. The album opens with a ludicrous seventeen-minute epic ("The Unnatural Conception in Two Parts: The Birth and the Massacre of Innocents"). It begins with choral pomp similar to Believer's legendary "Dies Irae”. It then moves into a mammoth one-chord chugfest reminiscent of the Peaceville bands (and of fellow Melburnians, Disembowelment). This section lasts a couple of minutes before the female vocals return. The song then drifts through several sections with varying degrees of melodic adornment. The fearsome death metal vocals arrive just before the six minute mark. The latter half of the song includes an interlude that simulates the birth of Christ, before some slow violins interweave with power-chords (much like My Dying Bride). Audacity would be an understatement. The song lacks cohesion but it wins for sheer ambition and chutzpah.

The second song is "Injudicial", my personal favourite. It has an intimidating central riff that sounds like Bolt Thrower played at a slower speed. It is a great piece of old school atmospheric death metal. The song’s relative brevity means that it doesn't sag under its own weight. That particular problem becomes more obvious on tracks like "Untombed" and "Haemorrhage of Hatred". Both of these contain messy, cartoonish mid-paced shuffles that sound misplaced against the predominant doom and gloom. "The Voyage of the Severed" isn't much better. It is a turgid stomp for the most part, but at least it ends with a fine melodic solo. The final song, "Removed of the Grave" feels like a breath of fresh air when the acoustic guitar and flute arrive in the intro. This is one of three songs that passes the ten minute mark. It lacks memorable riffs but it sounds as heavy as anything else from the time.

The central problem with this album is the lack of emotional vulnerability. The best death/doom has a sad, mournful feel. Paramæcium, being dedicated to Christ, lacks the Romantic freedom of the bands that influenced them. Think of a My Dying Bride classic like "The Bitterness and Bereavement", or a Paradise Lost classic like "The Painless". Those songs are heavy on two levels, both musically and emotionally. They succeed due to their overwrought depictions of mourning, which adds reverence to the sad chords and melodies. Paramæcium doesn't have this aspect. That makes this a difficult album to connect with on a personal level, unlike "Gothic", "As the Flower Withers" or even "Transcendence into the Peripheral". There is an emotional/personal void on this album, filled by the worship of an abstract entity.

"Exhumed of the Earth" is an impressive achievement and contains moments of brilliance. The first two (maybe three) tracks are worth the price of admission alone, and there are other good parts further in. We should credit Paramæcium for attempting to reach the heavens through one of the heaviest, earthiest of metal sub-genres. I understand why Jayson Sherlock (ex-Mortification) and his band-mates made this record. They could see how the majesty of death/doom might fit with their Christian message. Still, listening to the full album (at 65 minutes long) is a challenging experience. For me at least, this record is an unresolved contradiction of body and soul.

Impressive - 88%

TheUnhinged, May 10th, 2011

Paramaecium was probably the first death/doom band I ever listened to. Since I was still into more of a Gothic sound when I listened to it, it seemed a bit too extreme for me. I didn't think it was bad per say, just not my type of doom metal. Then I began listening to darker music, starting with Theatre of Tragedy, Funeral, My Dying Bride, and then ending up getting into funeral doom acts like Worship and Thergothon. When I started enjoying death/doom and funeral doom more, I began to appreciate this album much more.

While my all-time favorite album of theirs is Within the Ancient Forest, this less romantic, less symphonic, more funereal and more aggressive album is a very close second. Paramaecium plays very dirty, slow, funereal, angry death/doom with some funeral doom tendencies. To me, it's sort of like a combination of Funeral and diSEMBOWELMENT (with less fast parts, of course). What makes this album particularly interesting is that the more melodic elements (i.e. flute, violin, acoustic guitar, and even backing clean female and male vocals) actually make this album sound more sinister. A perfect example of this would be the final track, Removed From the Grave. After a very melancholy acoustic guitar/flute intro, we are dragged through crushing guitars led by guttural vocals and spoken female chanting (which remind me very much of the vocals on Funeral's EP, Tristesse). The way the cleaner instruments contribute to the dark, beyond-the-grave sound of the music is something that I have probably only heard from a few other bands, and if so, then they weren't nearly as memorable as this.

Another thing I like about this particular album is the same thing I like about diSEMBOWELMENT. They both go from a slow, crushing, drudging funeral doom pace to a faster death metal pace. Another thing that they have in common that also really impresses me is how extremely atmospheric they both are, and yet their music is completely organic, the main focus of the music being the actual metal. There is a complete absence of any keyboards or synthesizers as all atmosphere comes from real instruments from real talent. There is a very dead, graveyard-like atmosphere on this album that could make anyone envision walking around a dark cemetery, passing by old graves. There are even points in the album with sound effects that are meant to add to this, such as the sound of a tomb being opened. Judging from that, the song titles, and the (beautifully done) artwork, it's clear to see that Paramaecium's goal in the music was to make us think of graveyards, corpses, or just death in general (then again, what metal band doesn't try to do that?). Of course, Paramaecium succeeds in this.

Personally, I recommend this to fans of Funeral (Tristesse and Tragedies-era), Unholy, Thergothon, diSEMBOWELMENT, and Ahab. Since those bands also borderline death/doom and funeral doom, I think those would make good comparisons. The best songs, in my opinion, are the opening track, Untombed, Haemorrhage of Hatred, and the closer. The parts to watch out for the most that really stand out on the album are the opening of The Unnatural Concept, the clean vocals on Haemorrhage of Hatred, and all of Removed From the Grave.

Funeral Doom based on Christ's life - 82%

Kalelfromkrypton, October 27th, 2009

The reviews on this release focus around two things: 1. either the monotony and repetitive elements of the album take away the points or 2. All these things are performed on purpose for the sole objective of making the album as doom and mourning as possible. Thus, I will not focus on that, since the debate will be opened forever.

I will much more detail on some of the facts I think have not been appointed. First of all, to me this is NOT death/doom metal. I explain why: in order to have death metal you need some things: first and most obvious a death metal pace. The only thing here that remotely gets near to death metal is the voice but even so, it is not death metal per se. The death metal vocalization is far more guttural and deep and not that raspy (except maybe Obituary for instance). I think of this album more of a funeral doom album. Before I get the mockery for this I explain: Funeral doom is a genre that is defined by the mortuary slow pace of the songs which Paramaecium are very good at. The guitar sound is supposed to be raw and dirty. Paramaecium do this on absolute purpose.

Since the drumming department was filled by Jayson S, it was expected to have a lot of textures and tempo changes and tons of crashes to empathizes the signatures, which some drummers don’t know how to do well or interesting (Funeral from Norway anybody?), but hats off for Jayson here, being the pace of the music, he did an amazing job.

The production itself is raw, almost primitive and that is the way it is done on funeral doom, and NOT on death metal or doom as we know it (Isole, Morgion, etc), that is not to say, however, that the sound lacks power or that it sounds dirty as early black metal, but in the sense that the instrumentation is very basic and not polished whatsoever. There is predominance on the bass since Andew Thompkins founded the band.

The good things about this album (and there are certainly a lot) focus more than anything on the gloomy and sorrowful atmosphere, which is centered on the life of Jesus. Whether you think there is no reason to be sorry about that, is not meant to center around him, but more on his minister and life, from the unnatural conception to his redemption and the hope for mankind. Thus, the songs have a certain flow and the album itself has a structure purposely constructed that way.

The Unnatural Conception begins and as the other guy said, while it could be monotonous on the opening riff, it is not meant to innovate or to change riffs every two minutes. This crescendo was composed as they wanted in order to give the song this feeling that something huge is coming, an event that will change the course of history. The Massacre of the innocents (2nd part) is despairing itself; it evokes the feeling and vibe of this horrendous event where innocent children were slayed. ‘Injudicial’ is of course heaviest and fastest track, because it depicts all the beating Jesus had to go through and of course, it is heavy because the lacerating pain was just like that, heavy and unbearable. ‘The Killing’ being one of the most atrocious events in human history (whether be Jesus, Ghandi or any other) is slow, mournful, sorrowful and deep and it reflects the sadness and truly painful experience suffered. It is done that way on purpose plus the flute which tries to imply that although melancholic, there should be something else going on which is not on the surface.

‘Untombed’ uses a bass intro and the length of the song does not even notice, since there are plenty of textures to be found. It has mid tempo parts and slow parts but it builds up itself awesome, trying to depict the rise of the Christ from the grave and thus its crescendo. ‘Removed from the grave’ has very soft and calm passages invoking hope, and it is the perfect closer to the album, and again it is a lengthy 11min. song. This one, IMO does not top ‘Untombed’ but even so it is a great song.

This one for me captures the raw dirty-ness of funeral doom metal and certainly it is well enough produced to sound extremely powerful. Yet, in my opinion, the later development (‘within my Ancient Forest’) of medieval themes and inclusion of more instruments is where they reached the peak of creativity.

PoBDZ3: Reminds me of how Doom should be done - 85%

vrag_moj, July 4th, 2009

Recorded in Northcote, Melbourne over 15 years ago this could have been an album classic to the Doom Metal stream. The production is immaculate with dark, yet cleanly melodic guitars, bass omnipotent to the point of being unnoticeable unless it was not there and flawlessly precise drums courtesy of Jason Sherlock of Mortification and Horde fame. And whilst some people say that Christianity is the perfect ideology for Doom Metal, because Christians have a lot to feel doomed and depressed about (hell), I'd imagine the lyrical drive here does not sit well with the average metaller.

Although the lyrical message is quite clearly Christian, being comprised of brutal quotes from the Book of Lies, I just cannot write this off on the basis of ideology alone. The music just gets better and better. The album begins with a faithful if a little plain tribute to My Dying Bride - with beautiful female vocals and morose melodic riffs. By track 3 things become crushingly slow and heavy. Oppressive, old-school doom, one will not hear from the most Satanic of bands nowadays - the genre having strayed into depressive Black Metal territory some years prior, I miss hearing this shit and I'm sad to say this disk reminds me of how it should be properly done. Then the flute kicks in - a mournful, sublime sound, its place only here in slow excruciating doom.

The drums are just great. It is hard for a lot of drummers to maintain coherent pace at the crawling speed really dark Doom demands and Jayson Sherlock stands up to the challenge superbly. The secret is to fill in the empty spaces between the delineating beats just enough to embellish the rhythmic voids but not obstruct the pulsating atmospheric guitars.

In the end the album has an extreme stripped-back charm to it that can only come from an artist's early release. Having not heard subsequent offerings, I cannot comment from direct experience, though I can see how things could have gone downhill from here on in, explaining why this band, having broken up long ago has disappeared into the oblivion reserved only for artists betraying rock 'n roll's Satanic roots. Farewell Paramecium. Had you not been Christian - would your music been any better? I think so. But this remains a good Australian Doom Metal album, as much a part of this country's colourful contribution to the world's extreme stage as are D666, Kill the Kristians, Striborg, Sadistik and Horde.

Originally published in Procession of Black Doom zine #3

Beast of an album - 96%

Nahsil, December 15th, 2006

In another review, someone complains of repetition in Paramaecium's riffs. Well, it's not that simple. First off, doom metal has never been a stranger to repetition, and used in the right context it can be an effective tool. Second...well...second, Paramaecium did it in the right context. The first two minutes of "The Birth and the Massacre of the Innocents" have the same riff played ad nauseam. Sound boring? It's not. Because when Paramaecium wrote that 17 minute epic, they knew what they were doing, and instead of repetition's usual role as filler or the manifestation or amateur songwriting, it serves as buildup for a gradual crescendo into what is one of the best songs in doom/death.

There are albums that I rave over, that get all kinds of fanboyish praise, but this is not one of them. This album is so good that I don't feel the need to convince people of its merits. All I need to do is suggest a listen, and the music will speak for itself. I don't suppose the moderators would like that too much, though, so I'll go into a bit of detail.

The riffs are interesting. Don't let daft talk of repetition fool you. There are slow riffs, fast riffs, mid-paced riffs...and they all seem intent on giving the listener a proper bludgeoning. There is plenty variety to be heard. Some songs venture into uptempo territory, others are agonizingly sluggish and slow-moving (though not as leisurely as many funeral doom acts).

Atmosphere reigns supreme in the archaic crypt that is Exhumed of the Earth. "Removed of the Grave" will steal your feet from under you and send you to a world of places majestic. There's irony in the name 'Paramaecium', because if I had to choose a band whose sound was drastically opposite a small organism (more fitting of a band with minimalism at heart?), these Australian doomsters would rank high on the list. This album is absolutely epic in scope; Behemoth and Paramaecium should trade names.

Every performer on Exhumed of the Earth is a top-tier musician. The bass is huge and never submits to the guitar, as it does in so many metal releases (check out the bass intro to Untombed). But the guitar itself is just as big. The vocals are tortured, mixed perfectly, and divinely matched for this kind of music. The female operatic vocals: angelic. Drummer Jayson Sherlock, well-known in certain circles, is a sincerely talented man. Bass drums, cymbals, snares; they all sound amazingly crisp. Not to mention the flutist and violinist/female vocallist; all essential additions to the album.

Paramaecium are heavier than Runemagick. They're heavier than Morgion, early My Dying Bride, Novembers Doom, Ceremonium, Catacombs...the list goes on. And when was Exhumed of the Earth released? 1993?! When it comes to being oppressively heavy without descending in to a sand pit of tedium, these guys wrote the book, and that book has yet to be rendered any sort of obsolete. Fans of doom/death need to hear this album.

Pretty good, but eh... - 85%

spongerob, April 27th, 2004

OK, so basically, this would be a great album if it weren't for one simple thing: monotony. Simple as that. Great riffs, great drumming, great vocals, everything is great, except that the riffs in all the songs are far too repetitive. As mentioned above, there aren't many songs on this album, but each of the songs are quite long. This would work to the album's advantage except that the riffs simply don't seem to change within a song. If each song could be shortened significantly, or if the riffs could be more varied (the riff opening the first song was simply the same chord played over and over again for about 30 seconds), this album would be far better. Granted, this could simply be the way doom is, to be honest I haven't heard much, but it just lacks something. Great potential in this band, unfortunately I haven't heard any of their other releases (I plan to change that), but with this first impression they're not on the very top of my "To Buy" list.