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Self-professed Mesopotamian black metal combo Melechesh - originally based in the metal unfriendly environs of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Israel who later relocated to the more secular Amsterdam, the Netherlands and recently France and Germany - has always been one of the more interesting of the original second wave bands. Together with Orphaned Land they were among the earliest to combine underground death/black metal with Middle Eastern instrumentation and Arabic folk music. Their legend and repute grew considerably in the second half of the nineties as they fled Israel under mouting pressure from strict religious authorities resulting from the release of their controversial domestically bred debut “As Jerusalem Burns... Al'Intisar”. Since their 1996 debut Melechesh has released three albums on French imprint Osmose Productions and two on the considerably bigger Nuclear Blast Records. Suffice to say Melechesh has an interesting history and oeuvre to say the least. This is where “Ghouls of Nineveh” double-disc comes in…

Thanks to the wonders of international licensing and distribution rights as well as the fine people at Napalm Records and their partners Nippon Phonogram there’s now a compilation for the casual fan who wants to whet his/her appetite as to what Ashmedi and his rotating cast of musicians have been up in the past almost quarter of a century. “Ghouls of Nineveh” is a Japanese-exclusive double-disc career retrospective spanning all of the Melechesh discography, bar “As Jerusalem Burns... Al'Intisar” and the prior demo. Interestingly there’s but a single track from 2001’s “Dijnn”, four tracks from “Sphynx” (2003) and almost the entirety of “Emissaries” (2006). The remainder of content for both discs is culled from “The Epigenesis” (2010) and “Enki” (2015) or the more widely known, far better produced recent releases on German conglomerate Nuclear Blast Records. The lack of inclusion of tracks from the band’s 1996 debut “As Jerusalem Burns... Al'Intisar” and the accompanying demo “As Jerusalem Burns...” from a year earlier is insulting to say the least. That there’s but a single track from “Djinn” but almost the entirety of “Emissaries” is another puzzling decision. Space that could’ve been put to better use by evening out selections from each album instead of what was done here. It is understandable, at least from a sonoric point of view, but as a historic document (what compilations should strive to be) it is a major point of contention. To dispense with the obvious, “Ghouls of Nineveh” covers most of the ground you’d want of a compilation and as such it is more than representative for Melechesh as a whole.

To their everlasting credit Melechesh always was more of an Ancient Rites than a Nile. Melechesh is more concerned with conveying a Middle Eastern atmosphere than with playing at an inhumanly fast pace and/or being technical just for its own sake. The band evolved from Ashmedi's earlier, short-lived death metal solo project Crushed Cenotaph. Upon release of the  “As Jerusalem Burns...” demo and their debut a year later Melechesh were charged with “dark cultish” activity by religious law enforcement officials of the Holy Cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, all of which were later dropped. While considered Israeli the members are in fact of mixed descent, most prominently Armenian-Assyrian, Assyrian, and Arabian-Syrian. Central to the band’s lyrics are Mesopotamian and Sumerian history, antiquity and mythology and “The Epigenesis” is an exception in that regard as it concerns the titular concept derived from Greek philosophers Aristotle (in his Historia Animalium) and Plato. Melechesh has overcome many hurdles and countered every prejudice/bias that any band in their part of the world might face.

Where Nile has downsized its Egyptian component considerably over the last decade, Melechesh has done the opposite and worked diligently to integrate as much ethnic instrumentation and Arabian folk music as its genre of choice would allow. Along with Orphaned Land, Melechesh has been one of the pillars of Middle Eastern metal and their output has consistently been one of quality over volume. Where Melechesh has made the most obvious strides forward is in fusing ethnic instrumentation and Middle Eastern folk melodies with their patented stomping melodic black/thrash metal. What Melechesh unlike, say, Nile benefits tremendously from is their more deliberate choice of tempo. Not that Melechesh ever had any shortage of able skinsmen. Whether it’s Saro Orfali, Proscriptor McGovern, Yuri Rinkel, or Samuel Santiago behind the kit.

Melechesh always allowed its songs to breathe and neither of their drummers had the proclivity to fill every second of every song with needlessly elaborate fills or double-bass blasts. Something of which George Kollias, Derek Roddy and several others are prone to, often to the detriment of the songs. It’s puzzling why “Ghouls Of Nineveh” capitalizes so heavily on the band’s Nuclear Blast Records repertoire when their releases on Osmose Productions and Breath Of Night Records are considerably harder to come by, and even moreso in Asia. Why then that this double-disc compromises for the most part of cuts from “Emissaries”, “The Epigenesis” and “Enki” is anybody’s guess. As a historical document “Ghouls Of Nineveh” blunders by not evenly distributing its track selection among the albums.

Of course the question of legitimacy looms toweringly over this double-disc. “Ghouls Of Nineveh” was released by Austria's Napalm Records in cooperation with Nippon Phonogram. Perhaps it has something to do with international licensing laws since all of the band’s major releases were issued through France’s black metal specialist imprint Osmose Productions and Germany’s Nuclear Blast Records. Had this compilation been curated in cooperation with Ashmedi and his bandmates surely the song selection would have been more even-handed. For the most part “Ghouls Of Nineveh” is a missed opportunity. It’s representative enough for most of the Melechesh discography, but the focus on the band’s recent output isn’t necessarily to its advantage. Obviously there are far worse compilations out there – and Melechesh is the last band to be accused of milking its fanbase for money.

How exactly this compilation came into existence, or what motivation was behind it besides good old-fashioned greed, is anyone’s guess. There are no indications that Melechesh has terminated its long-standing contract with Nuclear Blast Records, nor does the artwork chosen for this compilation reflect any of the band’s usual aesthetics and imagery, other than pillaging promo material publicly available from the albums it selects material from. Melechesh is in no hurry to acknowledge the existence of “Ghouls Of Nineveh” – and neither do the usual music databases. There’s definitely an audience for a band-approved Melechesh compilation. The purveyors of true Assyrian black metal deserve better than this. This might be interesting for the casual fan, but that's all positive that can be said about it.

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By the time “Nightwing”, the fifth Marduk album and second with vocalist Erik Hagstedt (Legion) behind the microphone, hit the market the band had become familiar with its new style. Released a year after “Heaven Shall Burn…” it is a continuation of that album’s sound with overall increased levels of density. The line-up remained identical from the preceding album, and that internal stability paid off dividends in terms of consistency, and performances from each of the members. While it does not quite have the same impact as it its immediate predecessor “Nightwing” is a reliable but unimaginative follow-up to a great breakthrough album. It is, however, the last good Marduk album for quite some time, as the band would fall into a rut and lose steam shortly after its release.

To say that “Nightwing” is intense would be an understatement. The performance of drummer Fredrik Andersson borders on death metal territory considering the breakneck pace and percussive density he brings in said department. The bass-heaviness of Marduk’s early albums is carried over, and Bo Svensson (B. War) provides thick, oozing licks that propel the riffs from mainstay and creative force Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson to the front all while holding down the bottom-end heaviness. Two albums into his tenure with the band Erik Hagstedt (Legion) delivers his last worthwhile performance, as his voice would rapidly deteriorate on the successors to “Nightwing”. Some of the lyrics reek of process and latter-day Deicide (say “Serpents Of the Light”) too with memorable passages as: “Slay the Nazarene / Die, die, die!” Both ‘Of Hell’s Fire’ and the aforementioned ‘Slay the Nazarene’ have particularly poor lyrics to go along with the highly efficient but hardly exciting Norsecore. Was a bit of eloquence and verbosity too much to ask in black metal at this point in time? The theological sub-branch of the genre was still a couple of years away from exploding – but other big name bands such as Ancient Rites, Dissection and Emperor were lyrically more ambitious.

Marduk_old-lineup“Nightwing” is divided into two specific chapters. The first four songs encompass the "Dictionnaire Infernal", Marduk’s now patented attack on all things religious. Chapter two "The Warlord Wallachia", comprising of the last four songs, further fleshes out the Vlad Tepes narrative of the preceding record. ‘Nightwing’, the title track, is omitted from the tracklist altogether as it fits with neither chapter. “Nightwing” is the second part of the ‘blood’ chapter in an abstract tribute to Bathory’s landmark 1988 “Blood, Fire, Death” album. Further records include the preceding “Heaven Shall Burn” (blood), “Panzer Division Marduk” (fire) and the duo of “World Funeral” and “La Grande Danse Macabre” (death). In retrospect it makes the albums part of the movement a lot more interesting as up to this point in time Marduk changed a lot musically, but the way they structured their album has remained identical from yesteryear when they were a death metal band.

It is no surprise that there are more cinematic references to this album than you’d initially expect. That Håkansson loves cinema in its many forms is no secret, and “Nightwing” is littered with references in that regard. The spoken intro to ‘Slay The Nazarene’ is taken from the 1973 movie “The Wicker Man”. The main riffs of ‘Nightwing’ were adapted from the score of the 1991 vampire film "Subspecies". The lyrics are also based on the plot of the movie. The album’s main concept (and entire second half) is dedicated to further detailing the historical account of Romanian warlord Vlad Tepes. While the concept was initiated on the preceding “Heaven Shall Burn…” the subject appeared at its earliest on “Opus Nocturne” with the track ‘Deme Quaden Thyrane’ which was re-recorded here. This was probably done for completeness’ sake, but also out of convenience because this meant the band needed one less new song to write to complete the concept. That ‘Deme Quaden Thyrane’ fits the slower direction is rather opportune, as Marduk didn’t went all out high-speed black metal until “Opus Nocturne”.

The songs dealing with Vlad Tepes suffer from the same defect that made the “Heaven Shall Burn…” prologue a test in patience more than anything else. All these songs are directionless slow trudging cuts that work miracles in terms of pacing when they appear sparsely on each album. When taken back-to-back as the second half of an otherwise blisteringly fast genre effort they are poorly paced and constructed, supposedly epic songs to forward the Vlad Tepes narrative started two albums ago. Even in its death metal phase Håkansson never really excelled at writing slow material (‘Holy Inquistion’, ‘The Sun Turns Black As Night’ and ‘Within the Abyss’ excepted, if you are feeling charitable – or plainly adore that old dirgey death metal sound). Not only are these slow tracks horribly paced and constructed – they sit poorly with the preceding blisteringly fast tracks that serve to open the album. There’s no sense of journey with the narrative cuts, and Marduk’s musical frame is too limited (and limiting) to truly make something from these tracks. Since they had worked years to find their sound they weren’t going to revert back into their death metal form to make this work, which would have benefitted these tracks tremendously. Only ‘Anno Domini 1476’ sounds truly ominous and atmospheric in its eeriness, and this mostly due to the haunting choirs that appear sparingly and the militaristic percussion. Not only are these tracks listless and dull, they don’t sound very ominous either – which is the entire raison d’etre of black metal in the first place. Most of these tracks don’t build up to a climax, and what little there is of mentionworthy payoff isn’t worth sitting through most of them in the first place.

Marduk, to its credit, is consistent and reliable in what it does, and how it goes about accomplishing its very specific objective. In an almost Mortician sense, Håkansson relies on the tried-and-true formula established on “Opus Nocturne” and deviates not an inch from what worked in the past. Once again the album was recorded at Abyss Studio in Sweden with much in-demand producer Peter Tägtgren. Whereas “Heaven Shall Burn…” had a smooth sounding production that was richly textured in its digital gloss, “Nightwing” instead comes with a hostile concrete-and-steel sounding death metal production job. In fact this is the type of production that I’d wish Kataklysm’s “The Temple Of Knowledge” had. It’s certainly a headscratcher to see a black metal band do a death metal production better than an actual death metal band. The artwork by Belgian painter Kris Verwimp and Swedish artist Stefan Danielsson fits the early catalog. After this record Marduk would go into a different direction visually. “Nighwing” is a sturdy and reliable Marduk album – but its early death metal direction was plainly better.