Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Profanatica - Weeping in Heaven (1991)


Released 1991, Weeping in Heaven is the first official release from Profanatica. These guys were ahead of most in the American underground in picking up on the corpse paint, as evidenced by the cover photo. More importantly, though, Profanatica was probably the most evil band in the country at this particular moment in time. This release only includes two tracks, but this material is rather essential for anyone into Black / Death from this time period.

The music is still pretty similar to the old Incantation stuff, being a mixture of hellishly fast parts that featured sinister tremolo melodies and then the mid-paced parts that injected a good dose of doom into things. In 1991, Black Metal was still allowed to sound like this, with the thicker guitars and the slow sections mixed in. The atmosphere is still dark and evil and the demonic vocals really add a lot to this. The first track is a bit plodding, at times, never really getting to the point where it flows too well, until the end. The really primitive drumming may have something to do with that. "Heavenly Father" is more straightforward and fast-paced. there are some tempo changes, but not as much. The production is fairly rough, but clear enough to follow. The sound is not as harsh as The Oath of Black Blood, for example, but it suits the stripped-down approach of the music quite well.

Weeping in Heaven is raw and primitive Black / Death Metal that should please any fan of early Incantation, Beherit, Archgoat and so on. Here, Profanatica managed to do what so few in the states could accomplish in the decades after: actually making evil-sounding music with an atmosphere of darkness. Seek this out.