Summoning the Winds of War: The Unearthed Tome of Antichrist’s Sacrament of Blood

In the confines of my spacious and befuddled skull, I can’t imagine the sprawling northern tundras of the mythic lands of Norway and Sweden remotely compare to the hand rubbing, logging lands of Canada. This is a possible error of fatal proportions on my end. But, listening to the vile and violent underground disharmonics that have oozed out of each, a creature from a different space and time would hardly be able to draw a distinction. In fact, suckling off of the feral wolven teat of the Swedish lineage of bands such as Beherit, Canada has manifested some of the blackest bile to date.

With the above in mind, I take you back once again to a chest of unearthed bleak treasure. Recorded live, in a single day, in the year of 1994 AD by a band who formed five years earlier, and who would near slip into the cracks of the wormwood forever, were it not for (in my opinion) the best metal label this country has going for it right now, Nuclear War Now, Antichrist’s “Sacrement of Blood” is a pure manifest of war-like metal. The most amazing part of this sinister release is how contemporarily relevant and exciting it sounds. As though Antichrist lived on a plane where all time stood at once, these tracks contain shards of everyone from Black Witchery, to Revenge, to Archgoat, to Beherit, to Blasphemy, to Inquisition, and just a few drops of Necros Christos.

What’s most interesting here is the convergence between the musicianship and the recording quality. While no member of this horde is attempting anything of Malmsteen proportions, (thank Lucifer), each does appear to have firm, nail gauntleted, grip on their weapon of choice. The drums thunder unfaultingly through charge after charge, and the guitars fire seamlessly away like the emptying of so many clips into a worthless society. The vocals are particularly seizing, as they come from a familiar Nuclear Holocausto Vengeance center, but have an intriguing reverbial quality as well a sinister and ferocious versatility. The recording itself, though true, mastered just last year, with all of the modern trappings, tows a fine line between true kvlt blasphemy, and crisp hi-fidelity integrity. Every sound is clear and owning its own space, but blown out enough to keep the fiercest heads hooked in.

All-in-all Antichrist’s “Sacrament of Blood” is a seriously fortuitous discovery. It strikes at all of the right places for the war-minded metal head, and is a fairly notable tome even above and beyond that. Thankfully there are places like Nuclear War Now, a caustic orphanage for those truly dedicated to the sounds of extreme metal, to both bring unknown classics to light, and carry the torches of those still keeping the flames going.

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