Cianide a descent into hell review năm 2024

Review: Regressing from grindcore aesthetic into doom metal of a moribund nature, Cianide hybridize total minimalism in power riffing with resonating tunnels of concentric reductive oscillation in the oldest style of heavy and somewhat abstract but mostly gritty and nasally organic heavy metal rock. In bludgeoning power chords and guttural evaporations of slowly disintegrating vocals this band use the inspiration of influences Venom and Hellhammer to create thunderous and deliberately simplistic and deconstructive music in a cross-section of style between death metal, heavy metal and biker rock.

While most associate the doom genre with a depressive mood, this death metal-grindcore hybrid indulges as did the greats like Obituary, Infester and Gorguts in an abstract and biological sense of depressant motives, which means a melancholy that slows engagement with the world and encourages the listener to look within, where paradoxically, our representation of the world lives and so does our knowledge of the external. Riffs from this style could be compared to Bolt Thrower because they use longer phrases anchored in repeated patterns at different harmonic locations, in order to achieve a vertiginous and constant sense of immersive detachment.

Carved in rhythm songs are shapes which reflect the mood of descent, inverting itself asymmetrically for a return which inspires or destroys with the mood of a petulant minor god. Acerbic resounding power chord tumble riffs sluggishly engage a collision battery of degenerate recumbence and rise in geometric archangel opposition to the predominate declination, waiting in undulating poise before the waves of history rise in a phenomenon of resound and bring about venal downfall. Hedonistic in spirit and assertive in the metallic art of riff shaping as a means of coordinating mood to shape and motion of phrase, this release breaks no (0) new ground yet provides a forum for the raw spirit emerging within metal to speak at least its defiance and irrefutable aesthetic.

Rising from the depths of "The Windy City"; Chicago's finest death/doom threesome Cianide delivered its first death blow to the underground in 1992. After some initial praise from 1992's "Dying Truth," Cianide assaulted eardrums with what many consider their finest hour, "A Descent Into Hell."

Pure, unadulterated death metal and almost 20 years after its initial issue; 1994's "A Descent Into Hell" is finally available on CD once again. Almost 80 minutes (includes 1993's "Kills" demo and two unreleased tracks) of true death metal that Cianide has been delivering for almost a quarter of a century.

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Cianide are cool as shit. Though their career could be described as having an overall trend toward faster, more death metallish material and away from the crawling death/doom of their earlier career, the change is pretty damn subtle and all of their material is clearly identifiable as work by the Chicago masters of all that is heavy. I've also really gotta hand it to these guys: they've trucked on for 25 years now without ever really getting the praise they deserve. Hell, I even remember reading some forum-goer a few years back say that he loved The Dying Truth but assumed Cianide were one of those one-and-done bands who released one classic album then disappeared into the nether. He was shocked to find out that they've been slowly but steadily pumping out bone-crunching death metal goodness this whole time. Mike and Scott seem like really cool dudes, which I suppose you'd have to be to stick around for this long playing this sort of stuff without as much appreciation as you deserve.

A Descent into Hell serves as the logical followup to their massive debut. Things are even heavier than before this time around, with a gigantic, bassy as fuck guitar tone. It's almost comically heavy; check out the intro to “The Luciferian Twilight”. Most death/doom bands would kill for a mix as heavy as that, and then the actual bass comes in and takes things to whole new extremes of thunderous. The riffs, as always, are about as simple as you get. They're all extremely basic, primitive powerchord affairs, without the flashy technicality of things as advanced as “tremolo riffs” of their later career. Seriously, this band makes Asphyx sound like Origin. At the same time, the riffs still have a whole lot more going on than the even-slower material by contemporaries Winter, who were even more basic and funereal in their approach.

The band's knack for writing absolutely killer dead-simple death/doom riffs is made even more apparent the few times they deviate from their formula. The opening riff to “Beyond the Fallen Horizon” has more notes than I've got fingers, and that's just too damn many for Cianide. I suppose it was an attempt at being a little more “progressive” than their usual material, but the riff just sort of meanders and isn't exactly one of their better compositions. All's not lost, though, because the rest of the song is pretty good. Songs like “Darkness” are so effortlessly cool that they probably single-handedly spawned Coffins' entire career. The most tech song here is the brief “Death Dealer”, which features actual blastbeats! Album closing monstrosity “Mountains in Thunder” couldn't have been more aptly named, closing with some rad Godzilla samples after one of the album's better tracks.

Speaking of whom, Uchino clearly took a few notes (well, maybe THE note) from the Mike Perun vocal playbook. He uses a deep, rasping, roaring growl that sometimes receives more blackened support from guitarist Scott Carroll, although not as frequently or prominently as on some other Cianide albums. I can't really imagine any other vocal approach working for this, though, as Perun's measured pace and guttural bellows are pretty much the exact vocal equivalent of the band's chugging, pounding guitar riffs.

Drummer Jeff Kabela might be the only weak link on A Descent into Hell. He pretty much uses the exact same plodding style he used throughout The Dying Truth, but his inability (or unwillingness) to do much deviation from the basic beats leaves something to be desired in this slightly faster (on average) material. The switch to the more capable Andy Kuizin for Death, Doom and Destruction was a wise move on the band's part. He's still holding down the throne in Cianide to this day, so the band must've been happy with their choice.

If you liked The Dying Truth, there's pretty much zero possibility that A Descent into Hell will let you down. The guitar tone is a hell of a lot heavier, and the production, while certainly not flashy, adds a lot of low end that does these songs more justice. The songwriting is about on par, too, with riff after riff of crushing madness with only a few that don't really work so well. The slightly quickened pace also serves as a nice segue into the band's masterwork Death, Doom and Destruction which would come out three years later. Folks vaguely familiar with Cianide are doing themselves a huge disservice by not adding this excellent sophomore album to their collections, and fans of mega-heavy death/doom who haven't heard this band at all could just as well start here as anywhere else.