Judas Iscariot
| Judas Iscariot | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Extreme metal |
| founding | 1992 |
| resolution | 2003 |
| Founding members | |
| Akhenaten | |
Judas Iscariot was an American extreme metal band led by musician Andrew Jay "Akhenaten" Harris. In addition to Judas Iscariot, he ran the label Breath of Night and the bands Sarcophagus and Weltmacht as well as a website on the Polish black metal scene.
Band history
The project was founded in 1992 under the name Heidegger in the USA and renamed Judas Iscariot in 1993. Akhenaten moved to Germany because he felt more comfortable in Germany, where he believes culture and history play a bigger role than commerce and materialism, which he rejects and with which he identifies American culture. Nevertheless, he wanted to see Judas Iscariot understood as a US band.
Up until the release of the album Heaven in Flames (1999), Akhenaten played all the instruments himself, after which Cryptic Winter joined him as a guest musician on drums . Kanwulf from Nargaroth (live guitar ), Lord Imperial von Krieg , who from January 2000 also played with Akhenaten's band Weltmacht (live guitar), Proscriptor from Absu (live drums) and Butcher from Avenger and Maniac Butcher (live Drums). On August 25, 2002, Akhenaten announced that Judas Iscariot had been disbanded; August 25th is also the date of death of Friedrich Nietzsche , whom he named as an inspiration. Accordingly, the title of the last EP Midnight Frost (To Rest with Eternity) (2003) indicates that this was the last release.
style
Judas Iscariot played a raw, black-metal-influenced style with "roots in the sluggish area". Compared to the music, which he always recorded with a 4-track device and with his own equipment, Akhenaten sees the inspiration from night, darkness, cold, evil philosophies, war, death and the desire for total Armageddon as more important. As musical inspiration he gives bands like Graveland , Infernum , Darkthrone , Burzum and Moonblood . According to his own statement , he hates keyboards if they are not used "tastefully" as in Burzum and Graveland; accordingly, he used them on the album Heaven in Flames (1999), but paid attention to an economical use, which should give the music additional dimension. In his opinion, the aggressive character of the music should not be lost by the keyboards and Black Metal as apocalyptic music should by no means sound nice. Regarding female singing, he quotes Barbarud from Maniac Butcher:
“FEMALE VOCALS ??? WE HAVE OTHER USES FOR THE MOUTHS OF GIRLS !!!! ”
“Female singing? We have other uses for girls' mouths !!!! "
The label Red Stream, on which the album Heaven in Flames (1999) was released, interprets the musical development of Judas Iscariot as a way to combine the slow, moody and atmospheric sound of Burzum or Graveland with the raw, minimalist, aggressive blasts of Darkthrone .
Kai Wendel from Rock Hard described Akhenaten in his review of The Cold Earth Slept Below as a “bungler” who “completely undeservedly gets publication honors” because “[h] e nowadays […] everything is really pressed on CD”, “which somehow sounds like Black Metal ”. He couldn't keep the beat on the drums; the publication is "[h] undertprozentiger garbage".
The Demo Of Great Eternity (1997) is partly reminiscent of Darkthrone, whereas the song The Heavens Drop with Gore “is more in the melodic part”. Then Mourns the Wanderer, on the other hand, is slower, more pressing and underlaid with "hacking" drums.
The album Heaven in Flames (1999) differs greatly from previous releases, is heavily influenced by Burzum and uses keyboards. The music is "[m] onotonic and dull rumbling", the riffing creates a melancholy atmosphere. Torsten from the Webzine FinalWar describes the album as a setting of what defines Black Metal for him: “A maximum of atmosphere, darkness and hatred. Sounds that eradicate any feeling of pity, joy or happiness in you and turn the world around you into a black nothing. "The label responsible for the release, Red Stream, sees a strong Graveland influence in the structure of the album through repetitive riffs, the Combination of tonally abstract or evocatively obscure melodies with more straightforward sections to change the mood from thoughtfulness and melancholy to bitterness and anger, as well as the singing, which is described as harsh barking and cursing and clearly inspired by the Graveland singer Rob Darken. The drumming is, apart from the slower sections, from trance -like blast beats in the style of DARKTHRONE Transilvanian hunger resulting from snare drum , bass drum and hi-hat composed. Red Stream compares the use of the keyboard with that of Polish bands and, especially for Gaze Upon Heaven in Flames , with the US band Demoncy .
The EP Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten (2000), on the other hand, is reminiscent of Darkthrone at the time of her album Transilvanian Hunger , and the cover "comes across as minimalistic and ungalant as it was with Fenriz & Culto ". According to Robert Müller from Metal Hammer , the band's catalog is "[z] at least quantitatively [...] impressive". Akhenaten, according to his reference to the early days of the scene, is “primitive and coarse [...] to the point, the sound also works like cleaning the inner ear with barbed wire. Musically, however, I have never been particularly enthusiastic about the Finsterling's works, and this CD is no exception. The cold, malicious atmosphere is right, but capable songwriters thrive even in these barren regions. Akhenaten is unfortunately not one of them, but only lets one well-known reef march after the other. The best moments always come when the tempo slows down to a clumsy stumble and the rugged beauty of these minimalist melodies can unfold. "
The album To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding (2002) lies musically between Darkthrone and Burzum and fluctuates between more burzum-heavy pieces like Spectral Dance of the Macabre and rougher ones.
With the EP Moonlight Butchery (2002) Akhenaten returned "in contrast to the rather fast material of the last works, to its roots in the slow area". It has “an incredibly deserted, cold, grim atmosphere”, “so it offers the quality that one is used to from Akhenaten”.
His last EP Midnight Frost (To Rest with Eternity) (2003) contains the Heidegger demo from 1992, which has a poor sound quality and "has nothing in common with the class of later works", and two songs that are based on the Debut album The Cold Earth Slept Below were heard, but are faster and shorter here.
ideology
Akhenaten saw the target of Judas Iscariot as propaganda against what he believed to be the predominant Christian ignorance. However, he did not try to reach a large audience for it and said he did not need the support of the press and did not want it. He also doesn't need any royalties , instead money won by Judas Iscariot should flow back into the underground.
For some, the band is “THE institution when it comes to Black Metal from the USA”, for others as an overrated “case of exaggerated cult behavior”. Akhenaten, however, refuses to regard Judas Iscariot as the most famous US black metal band and held against bands such as Black Funeral , Grand Belial's Key , Krieg, Demoncy, Black Witchery , Thornspawn and Absu , who do a lot for the credibility of the US Would have done underground . The band Grand Belial's Key attacked Imperial and Akhenaten in an interview, accusing them of being responsible for the state of the scene and therefore having no reason to complain about them.
Akhenaten named Nietzsche as an influence both for Judas Iscariot and for his own life and described nihilism in interviews as the only philosophy that made sense for him; He saw hell, for example, as an illusion as well as heaven and God; accordingly, he sees hell as a figurative contrast to the Christian God . According to his own statements, he withdraws from taking pictures in order to be able to bring his inner demons out of his consciousness. When recording Heaven in Flames , he said he had no contact with other people for over a week and was in a trance-like state, of which a large part he can no longer remember. A review of this album also notes that it is "probably mentally absent". According to Robert Pöpperl-Berenda from Rock Hard, Akhenaten “only reads from Nietzsche what is convenient for him, will probably not bother the target audience too much, but it will rightly be a thorn in the side of politically alert people”.
Every now and then Judas Iscariot is assigned to the right-wing extremist spectrum. Regarding these allegations, he said “that Judas Iscariot is not a Nazi band. I'm not a Nazi myself. It is my utopia to run through the streets with a flamethrower and burn to ashes every person who comes into view. If other bands think they have to put politics into their music, that's their business, but that has nothing to do with my band ”. He also states that he abhores the “hillbilly 'hate niggers' mentality” and that racism is an issue that should be approached “with intelligence and restraint”. He is neither interested in National Socialism nor part of the NSBM underground. On the other hand, he said that in his eyes the "Aryans" are the most beautiful and the closest to physical perfection "race" and describes Christianity as a religion foreign to the "Aryan race" with " subhuman origin". In addition, Akhenaten participated with his other project Weltmacht in the compilation The Night and the Fog. A Tribute to the National Socialist Black Metal Underground .
Discography
- 1992: Heidegger (demo)
- 1993: demo (demo)
- 1996: Arise, My Lord ... (EP; Breath of Night Records, Moribund Records)
- 1996: The Cold Earth Slept Below ... (Moribund Records)
- 1996: Thy Dying Light (Moribund Records, Chanteloup Creations)
- 1997: Of Great Eternity (Elegy Records)
- 1998: Distant in Solitary Night (Moribund Records)
- 1999: Judas Iscariot / Weltmacht (Split with Weltmacht ; Sombre Records)
- 1999: Heaven in Flames (Red Stream Inc., At War Records, End All Life Productions )
- 2000: From Hateful Visions (Best of; Pagan Records)
- 2000: None Shall Escape the Wrath (split with Krieg , Eternal Majesty and Macabre Omen; Spikekult Records)
- 2000: Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten (EP; Red Stream Inc., Chanteloup Creations)
- 2000: Under the Black Sun (Live-LP; Painiac Records)
- 2001: To the Coming Age of Intolerance (split EP with Krieg; Painiac Records)
- 2002: March of the Apocalypse (EP; Sombre Records)
- 2002: To Embrace the Corpses Bleeding (Red Stream Inc., Irond, No Colors Records )
- 2002: Moonlight Butchery (EP; No Colors Records)
- 2003: Midnight Frost (To Rest with Eternity) (EP; Sombre Records)
swell
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Bruno Zamora: Judas Iscariot interview @ Tartareandesire.com. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016 ; accessed on November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ Akhenaten: Tribute To Polish Black Metal. 1999, archived from the original on October 7, 1999 ; accessed on March 11, 2011 (English).
- ↑ a b c d e f g Torsten: - = FinalWar - German Black Metal WebZine = -. Retrieved November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ Judas Iscariot . In: Erik Danielsson, Håkan Jonsson (eds.): Hellish Massacre . No. 2 .
- ↑ a b c d Judas Iscariot - Heaven In Flames. Retrieved November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ Kai Wendel: Judas Iscariot . The Cold Earth Slept Below . In: Rock Hard , No. 121.
- ↑ a b c evil: JUDAS ISCARIOT - Of Great Eternity (MC) :: Rezension / Review at metal-district.de. July 7, 2001, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ a b c d e Judas Iscariot - Heaven In Flames - CD Review at Metal1.info. Archived from the original on October 30, 2012 ; Retrieved November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ Azazel: Judas Iscariot - Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten MCD. December 11, 2000, accessed November 30, 2009 .
- ^ Robert Müller: Judas Iscariot . Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten . In: Metal Hammer , January 2001, p. 89.
- ↑ frostkamp: Grand Belial's Key Interview. August 5, 2008, accessed November 30, 2009 .
- ↑ Robert Pöpperl-Berenda: Judas Iscariot . Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten . In: Rock Hard , No. 166.