CoC : Accursed - Meditations Among the Tombs : Review

Accursed - _Meditations Among the Tombs_
(Visceral Prod., 1995)
by: Henry Akeley (8 out of 10)

I only know two things about this band: first, its three members hail from Wisconsin, and second, they have produced an extremely impressive debut of blackened avant-garde metal. "The Last Sunrise" opens the album in epic fashion, twisting and turning through venomous black cacophonies and pounding doom riffs backed by pealing bells. "Land of Whispers" is -weird- sounding black metal, and "Where Icicles Form" is genuinely creepy, and once again pretty strange. But the Accursed sound isn't just constant aggression: every song contains all kinds of fluid changes of tempo and feel. Like many a black metal band, they've also peppered their album with hypnotic musical interludes, usually featuring synthesizers. But unlike most, these guys actually use keyboards as a -lead- instrument on a couple of non-intro tracks. On "Oceans of Time" and the all-instrumental title track, this works surprisingly well. Even though there are some weak moments on the album, at their best Accursed sound like a more adventurous version of _Hordane's Land_-era Enslaved. In other words, this is a killer release, by a band with immense potential.

(article published 9/6/1996)