During Metal Month III I came across these guys in the “Freshly Forged” section, and though I can't say I liked their music they did give me much amusement, so I'd like to revisit their catalogue.
Hate (really worked hard on that band name, huh?) are a death metal band from Warsaw in Poland, comprising four members who don't use their real names (where's the fun in that?) so we end up with Cyprian, Chaos and Mittloss on bass, guitar and drums respectively, and the hilarious figure of Adam the First Sinner (chortle) on guitars and vocals. This is a slightly different lineup to the band who produced their most recent effort, 2015's
Crusade: Zero – or maybe they just changed their names – but then this album was released all the way back in 2002.
Cain's Way – Hate – 2002 (World War III)
This is Hate's third album of nine released so far in a career spanning twenty years, and seems to demonstrate that anger against and disillusionment with organised religion, especially Christianity, that tends to be the meat and drink of Black Metal bands, though I'm beginning to see that thematically – and often musically too – the two subgenres do seem to share common ground more often than not. With the title the album has, glorifying the first murderer spoken of in the Bible and the first after Adam and Eve to be banished for a crime, it's clear that these guys are taking the opposite path to the one Jesus wants them to, while also saluting him with only their middle finger. We kick off nice and gentle (yeah) with machinegun guitars and a fusilade of drums as we smash into the appropriately-titled “Apocalypse”, with Adam growling like one of the beasts from the depths as he exults in the destruction of the Earth as Armageddon arrives and humanity is powerless to stand against it. Not so much guitar riffs you can make out as a barrage that tries to pummel you into submission while Adam croaks about
”Evil perfection/ All things dead are dying again” and the
”Sorrowful march of human crowds/ Infernal flames burning them down.” All great fun. Not such great fun though is the fact that this gobs
hite who uploaded this to YouTUbe (you guessed it: not on Spotify!) decided to put a twenty-minute gap between the first and second track! Stupid c
unt.
Anyway, there are more discernible riffs in this, and it's slightly slower with a bit of a marching rhythm at times as Adam goes on about the
”Tree of Wisdom/ Clever trap for human kind/ Its fruits are holding poison/ And its branches suffocate.” while “Sectarian murder” bemoans the killing of those who don't believe in Christianity, possibly referencing the Inquisition or maybe closer to home? Doubt it's about the Troubles in Northern Ireland though, which is where I learned of the word “sectarian”... Great solo here, first I've heard on the album, and then we're into the first instrumental, though it's really only thirty seconds or so of kind of industrialised sound before we're back hammering at it with “Through hate to eternity”, where the boys declare their fealty to Satan, again blurring the lines between this and Black Metal, at least to my untrained eyes and ears. And er get another fine solo, which is expertly executed and even melodious. Best yet.
God's back in the dock for “Shame of the creator” as Adam laments the
”Tears of the tortured who fall at your feet” – again perhaps the Inquisition, or it could be a more general disgust with religion, I don't know. Or particularly care if I'm honest. Lightspeed guitar again breaks out into some pretty sweet solos, though they don't last for longer than a few seconds. Though the song is fast – as it would appear are all of Hate's compositions – the vocal is somehow slower and crunchier. No letting up on God and this time it's His son they're after as, Slayer-like, they seek to prove that when Jesus died on the cross, he really just died, that there was no resurrection. This is evident from the title: “Resurrected but failed”. Hmm. Somehow, though I would not have believed it possible, Adam drops into an even lower register than his normal singing voice, and oddly it really works well.
The story of the first biblical murder is then retold in the title track, with some nice guitar work thrown in there, before this time Hate take on the Holy Trinity in, well, “Holy dead trinity”. Sounds like something an alternative Robin might say to Batman, were their enemy called Trinity and they had accidentally killed him! Anyway, this track blasts along at breakneck speed, and powers into “Future is mayhem” where the boys seem to be invoking the awesome power of nature, and we end on one more instrumental. It's surprisingly, almost stunningly, gentle and melodic, which kind of leaves me a little confused as the album gently comes to a stop rather than crashing into a wall, as I had expected.
TRACK LISTING AND RATINGS
1. Apocalypse
2. ... and the sin becomes
3. Sectarian murder
4. The fifth eternally despised
5. Through hate to eternity
6. Shame of the creator
7. Resurrected but failed
8. Cain's way
9. Holy dead trinity
10. Future is mayhem
11. From Cain to Cadmon
Yeah, this ain't for me. Can't really even make fun out of it like I could with their other album. I think in my case that was a sort of novelty and it wears off really quickly. The lyrics are well-written and when you have them in front of you you can actually understand what Adam is singing, but my problem is that nothing of this is memorable to me, bar the closing instrumental, which was a big surprise but too short. I could listen to a thousand death metal albums like this and never know the difference. There's just nothing there for me to focus upon. Whether all of Death Metal is like this, or whether Hate are just a bad example of the subgenre, I don't know, but as I continue my exploration of all things Metal through this journal I guess the answer will become a little clearer in time.