christmas is still upon us and i finally found a bit spare time to listen to some music. i got a bunch of new and cool records for christmas which scream for some attention. it's nothing too special but very nice nevertheless. i'll write about them in due time. now to a record a obtained at the beginning of the month. benediction's third full length "transcend the rubicon". it is widely acknowledged as their crowning work and i can only agree to that opinion.
musically this is precise old school death metal from a time period where death metal already began to decline in poularity. "transcend the rubicon" was released in 1993 and by the mid-nineties the metal world got tired of this form of extreme metal. only when newer bands began to include fragments of other metal genres or even different musical styles into their sound, death metal came back. this benediction record is as mentioned before pure old school death metal and therefore pure gold to me in the moment.
i frequently visit ebay the past weeks to catch some early nineties death metal gems. unfortunately these records can be some real pain from a price point of view. that is why i also buy some good re-issues when they are made in the fashion of the first pressings. in this case original white vinyl copies of "transcend the rubicon" on nuclear blast sell for a shitload of money. the last one on ebay went for over eigthty bucks. too much for me.
when i visited germany's d.i.y. death metal label animate records i came across a nice re-press of this great album from 2016. cosmic key creations from the netherlands did a very nice re-press that is real close to the original. beside of new centre labels and a minimal change in font on the back cover, this one is an exact replica. the cover of dan seagrave is absolutely sick. the best work of him in my humble opinion. 500 copies made. cosmic key creations. 2016.
