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Category: Krisiun

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After the rise and fall of Sepultura and before the advent of populist metal trio Nervosa there was Krisiun. Since 1990 the Kolesne brothers have been proudly flying the flag for Brazilian death metal. Often imitated, domestic and abroad, but never surpassed, their four-album jaunt up until 2001's "Ageless Venomous" was pretty much flawless. "Works Of Carnage" was a stylistic experiment that toyed with shorter, bouncier cuts and big choruses. On 2006’s “AssassiNation” things really took a turn for the worse. Those vainly hoping for a creative renaissance had their hopes squashed with “Forged In Fury”. That record was a bloated, over-long, directionless platter signaling that the brothers three had finally hit rockbottom. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is their latest and if Dying Fetus, Morbid Angel and Monstrosity can produce decent records in their old age, so can they.

After a quarter of a century and 10 albums there’s bound to be some fatigue to the way a band writes. Krisiun hasn’t been handling anti-Christian rhetoric exclusively since “AssassiNation”. “Southern Storm” and “The Great Execution” were records that dealt with historical and mythological concepts of beasts and war almost entirely. Krisiun has been writing loose concept albums for more than a decade now and with “Scourge Of the Enthroned” the brothers continue that trend. Instead of their usual themes “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is based on Sumerian mythology. Every formula eventually proves fatal and in Krisiun’s instance that happened with “Forged In Fury”. It was probably their most critically savaged recording in the 12 years that they’ve been releasing mere variations of “AssassiNation”. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is not the much pined after creative renaissance for the Brazilian brothers, but at least it’s marginally more inspired than the insipid and meandering song sets they’ve been releasing over the last 15 years. It is folly to expect them to write another “Black Force Domain” or “Apocalyptic Revelation” but if the riffing is anything to go by “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is a step in the right direction again. Is this the next great Krisiun record? Hardly, but does it ever try.

At least Krisiun heeded the criticism leveled at some of their more recent works and opted for more manageable song lengths. Krisiun are at their best when they stay within the four-minute range and don’t loose themselves in boundless repetition. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” sheds most, if not all, of the trio’s typical extraneous diversions. It’s refreshingly straightforward and doesn’t bother with any of the usual pointless instrumentals that have been littering their albums since “Works Of Carnage”. A good Krisiun record clocks in around the 40-minute mark and this album’s 38 minutes is far closer to “Apocalyptic Revelation” than it is to “Southern Storm”. The songwriting too seems to have improved, although not in any drastic or dramatic sense. The cuts are mercifully more to-the-point and some of the riffing leans closer to “Conquerors Of Armageddon” than it does to “Works Of Carnage” which is always a plus. Max Kolesne’s blasts these days are more concentrated around selective portions of songs instead of being their entire raison d'être. Just like everybody else age is inevitably catching up to Krisiun and they don’t play as rabid and frenetic as they once did. In a more general sense “Scourge Of the Enthroned” is one of the trio’s better offerings, but the days of “Apocalyptic Revelation” and “Ageless Venomous” are well and truly behind us now.

Krisiun has always been about precision. Alex, Moyses and Max are world-class instrumentalists cursed with a fairly regressive concept of songwriting. “Works Of Carnage” was entertaining just because it was an experiment. “AssassiNation” had more of a groove metal inclination but it worked well enough within that context. They were mere creative outliers in a repertoire of largely linear and percussive songwriting that drew equally from Morbid Angel as it did from early Sepultura and Slayer. What people seem to selectively forget is that there indeed was a Krisiun in those long forgotten, halcyon days prior to 2003. That exactly those outliers have since become the apparent norm and the accepted standard to which all new Krisiun output is measured is scary enough of a prospect all by itself. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” brings back at least a fraction of the old riffing schemes and cuts down on the repetition and groove-fixated songwriting choices that have been bogging down the Krisiun assault for over a decade. Alex Camargo is still the weakest link and his barks have been getting less guttural for a while now. Krisiun is, much like Obituary, a band that has embraced its regressive tendencies as if they were virtues. The brothers three have been growing complacent and if “Forged In Fury” conclusively proved anything it was that. Krisiun has been stagnating for quite a number of years now and "Scourge Of the Enthroned" might as well be the first sign of life in a long time. Not that it's bound to become a new classic or even mandatory within the larger Krisiun canon. It's solid and unadventurous.

So where does that place “Scourge Of the Enthroned” in the now extensive Krisiun discography? It’s better than their last couple of records but it’s still no match for their classic first four albums. The angular, linear songwriting of yore has been replaced with more melodic by-the-numbers songwriting that reeks of cold professionalism and years of experience, as much as process. Perhaps Krisiun is not quite as guilty of the latter as some of their contemporaries, but they haven't sounded inspired and inspiring for over a decade. “Scourge Of the Enthroned” might not be the grand return of a band that has been falling to the wayside for quite some time now, but it offers enough reasons to remain cautiously optimistic. We might not demand (or expect) another “Ageless Venomous” from these three brothers but “Scourge Of the Enthroned” offers at least a smidgen of hope of them still being able to concoct a reasonable facsimile thereof. At least it's better than "Forged In Fury" and that should count for something these days...

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In the late 1990s a new charge of South American underground bands stormed the world due to the increasing popularity of Brazilian export Krisiun, comprised of the three Kolesne brothers. Every label you could imagine was seeking out their personal Brazilian death metal band, and as such every band that could write a decent song and play really fast was offered a contract. Within the year there were albums released globally by Abhorrence, Mental Horror, Nephasth, Ophiolatry and a couple of others.
 
Notable among these young hordes were Rebaelliun. Not because of their music, especially, as they were cut from a rather typical cloth of Slayer-meets-Morbid-Angel – but because of their do-or-die attitude. The fact that they had sold all their possessions (furniture, clothing, etc) in Brazil and moved to Belgium of all places to get a start in their productive but ultimately short-lived metal career, custodian only to a locally produced promo tape, speaks volumes of these men’s dedication. In one week they had secured their first gig, and based upon that very first gig (at the legendary Frontline club in Ghent) they were able to land a record deal with Holland’s Hammerheart Records.

11704863_875570659158593_2958795480706328621_nThe popular consensus at the time was that Rebaelliun was just another Krisiun clone, and to an extent that is true. The difference with Krisiun is that Rebaelliun relies heavier on the influence of early Slayer, and their Morbid Angel leanings are only secondary to that foundational aspect. The point is also that Rebaelliun, even this early in their career, knew to how to arrange a song. Certainly, they play at blistering speeds most of the time but the dynamics are actually very clever for a genre as limited as death metal. The leads/solos of Ronaldo Lima were another high mark and selling point for this band. Of the two guitarists, Lima is more technically proficient and melodically gifted compared to the more straightforward approach of Fabiano Penna Correa. The band took the template of early Krisiun and worked their individual strengths around that basic framework. The result is an album that is savagely brutal, dynamic in composition but with an old school charm and warmth that was lost on Krisiun from “Ageless Venomous” onwards.

While Sandro Moreira’s drumming is intensely hammering and mostly unrelenting, the way he incorporates fills, rolls and cymbal crashes is a lot more creative and engaging than anything Moyses Kolesne from Krisiun ever did at that point or later on. In a lot of ways you could see it as thrash metal drumming sped up to the standards of the then-emerging blast death movement. On lead and rhythm guitar is the pair of Ronaldo Lima and Penna Correa, both whose primary source of inspiration lies with Slayer and Morbid Angel. The opening riff to ‘Spawning the Rebellion’ is vintage Slayer worship and the track ‘Hell’s Decree’ channels “Covenant” more than once, to say the least. The leads and solos are mostly of the Hoffman era Deicide variety. Marcello Marzari’s vocals are more barked than grunted, and while his bass playing provides the band with the most of its heaviness, it isn’t exactly special or captivating.  The bass playing is just typical doubling of the guitars and not much else otherwise.

11754495_876032055783910_8060379560008370254_oAnother thing that Rebaelliun understood, and what Krisiun didn’t seem to grasp, is that playing a bit slower, or mixing up faster and slower sections, adds to the depth of the song. Where Krisiun has a very single-minded approach to how they construct and perform their death metal, Rebaelliun had no problems with letting some early thrash architecture slip into their formula. This, of course, is much more beneficial to the band in the long run. Occasionally there are guitar lead trade-offs, but these are hardly as prominent as those in Diabolic’s original three-album run in the early 2000s. The lyrics are far from compelling as they deal with the usual subjects of war, extermination and religious defamation. Not surprising when you consider this band hails from Brazil, who like Poland, are amongst the most religious conservative Catholic countries in the world.

The album consists almost entirely of new and original material written specifically for this session. Outside of opening track ‘At War’ and mid album crusher ‘Spawning the Rebellion’ no demo tracks were refurbished. This is fairly logical considering that their “Promo Tape ‘98” consisted of only those two earlier mentioned tracks. Interesting is also the instrumental track ‘Flagellation of Christ (the Revenge of King Beelzebuth)’ which consists of spooky church organs, chiming funeral bells, sparse percussion and esoteric minimal guitar playing. The limited digipack of this album also contained the “At War” mini-CD, which was a single-CD limited repress of the band’s “Promo Tape ‘98”.

There are no weak moments to speak of on this record, although towards the end the riffing tends to get a bit samey. ‘Killing For the Domain’, ‘Spawning the Rebellion’, ‘Hell’s Decree’ and ‘The Legacy Of Eternal Wrath’ are the strongest tracks of this session. The production work is of the old school variety, meaning that not everything is balanced and equalized to glossy perfection. Moreira’s drums suffer the most from the limited production, having the snares sound like buckets, with indistinct sounding kickdrums that despite their lack of clarity add much to organic feeling of the record. Marzari’s bass guitar is mixed deeply under the meaty guitars and doesn’t get much space in the production other than providing the deeply rumbling undercurrent and thickness.

Like the erupting volcano that made up the album art for this record, Rebaelliun exploded unto the scene with finesse and conviction. In the wake of this record the band would tour Europe extensively, before recording another EP and finally a second album. After the touring campaign for their second album “Annihilation” Rebaelliun would fall apart due to a number of reasons. Years down the line Penna Correa would resurface with the more thrash-oriented The Ordher, Sandro Moreira would enroll in Mental Horror and Marcello Marzari would rejoin Abhorrence on a permanent basis. Little is known of what became of prodigious guitar player Ronaldo Lima, but the rumors persist that he stopped playing altogether after the Rebaelliun adventure ended as the band members returned to Brazil and all went their separate ways at various points.