Prepare for the Coming of the Eternal Masters

רְשִׁימ֥וֹת־תֹּ֖הוּ | Preemptive Strike 0.1 - Pt. 2 Storms, Fire, Lava... Tomatoes... The Review

By: Noa Artzi

10-4-17

A Brief Preface

I must confess I had a hard time reviewing this one. The variation in styles of Metal brought under the industrial scope on this album made the reviewing process of the piece almost akin to the process of reviewing a compilation album. Add in the fact that some of the music there was even of a style which I consume less on a regular basis and thus unfamiliar with all their nuances. You can imagine that it all made the process of figuring out some of the songs even harder.

So what am I fussing so much about here? Well, remember PES0.1, the Greek harsh electronics band that totally blew my mind back in 2015? I finally got to review one of their latest efforts, an MCD entitled "Eternal Masters". This time it’s an industrial Extreme Metal album, a work of collaboration between PES and Extreme Metal bands of different subgenres. Structure wise, there are 3 different songs in this release, each one appearing twice in two different versions, which are, as you may already understand, the results of different collaborations.

You can find here a whole banquet of Metal genres blended with Industrial music, from the obvious and highly palatable combination of Industrial and Black Metal to the less obvious combinations of Industrial and Medieval Black Metal and Melodic Death Metal. Hell, there's even one band there whose sound I may only describe as Victorian Industrial Black Metal. Have you ever heard anything like that before?

Well, neither have I.

I've even had a hard time deciding upon a format for this review. A general description of the album followed by some kind of general philosophical conclusion, or any general conclusion regarding its aesthetics was impossible straight off the bat due to its varied nature. A song by song description by order of appearance didn't feel right either. Finally I've settled on reviewing each song as a separate entity and describing all the different interpretations of the same song under the same title. Keep reading and you'll understand.

A cross observation of the different blends of styles with PES's typical sound led me to a few interesting conclusions regarding the different elements which make up the band's unique sound and it definitely helped me identify the elements which work well with me and those that don't.

Off the top of my head, I can say that all fusion experiments with bands whose sound is intrinsically Epic (Ered Wethrin) or relentlessly harsh and aggressive (Iperyt, Dominanz, Wolfheart) resonate well with the basic structure and vibe of the song by highlighting these elements in them. These combinations always seem work great.

I also tend to think that the outcomes of better fusions might have had the best correlation to what these songs were meant to sound like when initially composed by PES, as these have managed to enhance the original song without getting in its way. Although from what I've heard in a conversation with the band, Iperyt were granted a rather free hand when working on their side of the collaboration. If the outcome indeed corresponds what PES originally had in mind, then hive mind's totally at work here…

Storms, Fire, Lava, Tomatoes…

No seriously, it really sounded like they were singing "tomatoes" instead of "tornadoes" when I first heard this song. Makes you wonder, how can one possibly bring the world to an end using tomatoes? Total extinction of the plant species? Maybe never ending avalanches of rotten tomatoes destroying cities like bad live shows?

OK, enough of that and back to the music.

The collaboration with Borgne was the first song that PES released online. I was initially wowed by it and couldn't wait to hear more recordings from the album, but after getting hit hard by all remaining 5 tracks, I must admit this song is a great intro to the album, but nothing more than that.

Seriously guys, there's nothing too interesting going on there. Borgne's vocals are nothing special and they don't seem to manage to go anywhere or develop some kind of atmosphere. It's just something that goes on and on.

I never listened to any of Borgne's original releases. I'd like to think that they're a great band on their own and it's just the fusion reaction with PES that didn't yield any interesting products. After all I do have a soft, albeit caustic spot for anything industrial and I do know that you cannot always predict the results of your experiments.

With all due respect to Borgne and with all the supposed understanding of the genre they should possess as an Industrial Black Metal band, I must say that the collaboration with Medieval Black Metallers Ered Wethrin went way better.

Now let's go and see what Ered Wethrin's managed to do here…

The song starts out rather slow and quiet but the synth riffs in the background slowly build up the tension as the song picks up speed. This isn't a fast paced song but the bass drums in the beginning compensate for the lack of speed with their intensity and they do an overall great job hitting the listener hard throughout the song. An epic synth melody follows throughout and complements the vocals and other instruments well but also manages to add another dimension of complexity and interest. Ered Wethrin's vocals have a strong reverb effect added to them, giving them the feel of something bluntly penetrating your skin like shards of broken glass.

Hail, Ming, Hail!

This song is definitely the crown jewel of the album. It sounds great on both collaborations and would have probably sounded great on its own.

The fusion with Dominanz had all the great elements you'd expect from a PES song. Great samples (just listen to that crowd cheering Emperor Ming toward the end!), relentless aggression, pulsating Arpeggio synths which keep things alive, restless and ready to pounce in the background. In an interview I've done with the band, vocalist Jim made a comment on the mental images that flashed through his mind while he recorded vocals for this track. Now that I've heard the final recording, looks like all his mental work payed off. The crazed emperor's wrath seems to ooze out of these vocals. I may dub this Wrath of the Tyrant, the Industrial Black Metal edition.

That very same anger is also amazingly portrayed in the music itself, which has a very dominating and aggressive atmosphere. This is the one song that sounds great on both collaborations.

The song kicks off with a great sample in which a triumphant arch villain, presumably from an old Sci-Fi film is heard mocking mankind in a particularly poignant, snarly speech.

If the source of that sample is indeed what I think it is, it does a great job harnessing all the pathos and drama typical to the cinema world of yore into the song, thus creating the perfect aural setting for the tale about to unfold. I'm talking about all these movies from an era where overacting was a nonexistent term and ultra-realism was never a priority. The combination of these together with PES's compositions simply works great because of the somewhat delightfully over the top aspect of their music.

Generally speaking, there are several amazingly placed samples in this album as quite common in all of PES's works. This song is no exception, as clearly demonstrated by the aforementioned snarly opening sample and the cheering crowd in the end.

The other version of this very same song, the collaboration with Iperyt is definitely one of the best moments in album. Probably because it sounds like what I've been expecting to hear after listening to Jim doing Industrial Black Metal with Punishment Systems. The synth effects in the beginning of the song sound like weird transmissions you might get on your shortwave radio during the cold war, guitars are dominant here and even pop up as very short leads toward the end. These guitars are sadly not something you'd hear a lot on this Industrial Metal album. However, these too know when to shut up and let Jim speak.

One downside to the song were the monotonous drums in the beginning. But these morph soon enough into great military march drums that work way better than the ones in the beginning. These inevitably bring up the image of a country under the reign of a militant despot a la Fascist Italy, only his name isn't Mussolini but Ming and he happens to live on a faraway planet where he conducts his regime of utter terror and oppression. The song becomes faster for a very short while toward the end, as if convulsing under maddening pain for one final time before finally dying out with a long groan. A very unique ending I must say.

This song is aggressive and terrorizing, thus truly embodying everything that can be great about Industrial Black Metal. A genre that works great when the industrial side comes to emphasize all the great features about Black Metal –namely the cold atmosphere, the aggression and (not in this case, but sometimes) the melody.

Planet Eradicated

Eibon la furies were the only other band besides Iperyt which I checked out while reviewing this album. They sound like the result of an unholy union between over the top, Victorian Avant-Garde BM (yes, this exists!) and aggrotech. The dude from Eibon la furies has promised to bring some "Victorian Eccentricity" to the song, which he does great. However the song sounds like it was made by patching up parts composed and recorded by PES with those composed and recorded by ELF. And the "Victorian Eccentricity" that comes to mind when hearing ELFs parts has a rather effeminate, late Cradle of Filth-ish vibes which never were my cup of tea. These not only do not depict ELF's sound well, but most of all clash horribly with the absolute most masculine, aggressive vibes brought out by PES. The outcome is a bit awkward and I'm not sure if it works that very well. However, ELF's "over the top" tendencies do at certain moments go well with the occasional epic over the top-ness of PES which we've all came to know and love from their epic "Epos V" album.

As for Wolfheart…Well, these guys definitely gave me a hard time with their interpretation of the track. Great beginning though. That foreboding melody and that sample that PES chose to place at the beginning of the song totally stole my heart.

Synths and percussion soon join the party and the song officially kicks in, evolving into a classic Industrial Melodic Death Metal song.

As I've said before, I had a hard time figuring out this song as I'm not much of a Melodic Death Metal fan, but it's probably very well done as the Melodic Death Metal piece that it is. It's very aggressive on one hand but it's also very keyboard laden and full of powerful melodies.

One thing though, the sparsely heard guitars appear here as well, but they do not add much to originality of the song. Instead, they just seem to follow PES's work which sometimes accounts for some dull moments. Moments in which they could have truly shined out.

Summary

The jury has reached its verdict…

1.       Yes - any collaboration with aggressive sounding Industrial Black Metal, namely Iperyt and Dominanz. A similar combination worked a bit less well with Borgne, since the aggressive Black part of their Metal seemed less audible in their case.

2.       Works well in singular cases – collaborations with Epic atmospheric Black Metal, as in the case of Ered Wethrin. But then again, I have no idea how much Ered Wethrin contributed to the originality of the song. Also I cannot jump into any generalizing conclusions based solely on the single instance of this kind of collaboration.

3.       Yes and no – Eibon La Furies aka Victorian Avant-Garde Black Metal. For reasons stated before.

4.       Not sure - Melodic Death Metal aka Wolfheart. Not sure how to eat this one up, as I've never been much of a Melodic Death Metal connoisseur. Also, this is another one of a kind collaboration of genres on the album, so as in the case of Ered Wethrin, I cannot quite generalize.

Aside from that, I tried mapping out the collaborations that worked best with PES's music, in attempt to discover which subgenres of Metal work best with their music, only to find out that there were no monovalent correlations. I guess it can't be just a subgenre but something deeper and subtler than that. Something more like a general attitude and specific elements in the music. The essential ones among them being aggression, a cold terrorizing atmosphere and an epic over the top attitude.

This MCD was definitely an Interesting experiment which gave me a very good picture of what works for me so well with PES's music and what aspects of their sound initially made me fall for them so badly. And it was all achieved by examining the compatibility of their style with other artist's music.

Now that I'm done with this one, I have a whole new bunch of music to check out that just got appended to the ever growing list I already have. I've heard PES is releasing the previously unreleased pure dark electro tracks originally intended for the Eternal Masters MCD as a whole new full length release and that Iperyt also have something cooking in their blast furnace. Great, now I'll need a day job at the post office or some other random manual job you can do while checking out new music.

But before that, I'd like a crash course on the Fenrizolator. First things first.

Order of songs

1.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs. BORGNE - Eternal Masters 04:58

2.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs. WOLFHEART - Planet Eradicated 04:31

3.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs. DOMINANZ - Merciless Tyrant 03:51

4.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs ERED WETHRIN - Eternal Masters 04:44

5.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs. EIBON LA FURIES - Planet Eradicated 04:10

6.       PREEMPTIVE STRIKE 0.1 vs. IPERYT - Merciless Tyrant 03:35

Noa Kushnir Artzi (4/9/2017)