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Akercocke: The goat of Mendes
02/12/09 || Daemonomania
Akercocke. A band name seemingly created to amuse the denizens of GD. I’ll do my best to avoid the pleasures of hitting an easy target and instead focus on the music at hand. Making no promises however.
If you’re not familiar with the best-dressed Satanists in the UK, I’d suggest picking up “Words that go unspoken, deeds that go undone”. That album showcases a dizzying mix of death, black, and ? metal that brings to mind Opeth’s evil cousin. No matter how crazed the blend becomes, everything sounds like its going someplace. On “Mendes”, Akercoke had printed out the directions, but still hadn’t bought the road atlas. They definitely picked up plenty of the vilest Slim Jims and sodas for the ride though. To bring up Mikey A and his merry band of tricksters again, “Goat” recalls Opeth’s “Orchid”.
Let’s break it down a bit. In the first song, cheerfully entitled “Of menstrual blood and semen,” we get a vicious black metal screech and blasty assault followed by standard issue grooving death metal riffs, some keyboards, a buncha women orgasming, and a healthy what in the ‘arry Potter? feeling. You have two choices – fight or flight. Do you willingly suspend disbelief and push the evil between your legs – grimly embracing the off-the-wall wackiness? Or do you just laugh at how serious these dudes seem to be taking themselves? I’m about 30%/70% myself. But there’s no denying that the drummer is a phenom and the band has Luciferian balls of corroded steel for trying some of this stuff.
Jason Mendonca is fucken all over the place too. Punishing grunts, menacing screeches, whispering, whimpering, chanting, odd and off-key singing, just plain talking, inhaling, and bangers ‘n mashloads of other shit. The only consistent pattern he employs, as far as I can tell, is that he uses the deathgrunts with, appropriately, the slamming DM riffery. Probably the funniest moment on the whole album is during the last track, “Ceremony of nine angles.” Some guest female vocalissa yelps about appealing to “Satanus the king and the dark ones eternal” and then about “the age of fire”. You’ll chuckle unless you listen to this type of music whilst squatting in the dark woods twirling your mace in preparation to strike down the infant Jesus. In that case, this is probably the most honest and important album ever released.
This just in: the lyrics and spooky instrumentals confirm it, Ackercoke do take themselves seriously. Get a load of this:
Prince of the north – Belial
Eastern Prince – Lucifer
Leviathan – Prince of western shores
Prince of the south
Satan
Who knew, right? I always thought it was just one guy with the horns and the tail thing going. I guess they’ve got a big region to cover, so delegation was required. With all these princes, it is gonna be hell (roflolz) to pick the next commander in chief. How about:
The chatter of the Caco-daimones
and hooves upon flagstones
resound in darkness
Ah, brings back memories of trips to grandma’s house out in the Infernal Forest ov Aeternal Persecution. That borders the Lake Birthed of the Tears of Sobbing Archangels. Like a lullaby, those caco-daimones’ hooves upon flagstone were. Then there’s:
Sisters of the precious blood
confined to cloisters
know the flesh of your sisters
handmaids of christ
Yeah baby, I saw that porno. Speaking of which, the lyrics to “A skin for dancing in” should be enjoyed in their entirety. Please go smell that hymen and receive the unholy jism on your own time. While you’re at it, watch the band jump out of Rolls Royces and pretend to stab some jiggly tits (at least from what I remember) in the bonus music video. The last line of the last song, in case you’d missed out on the message reiterated about 666 times previously throughout the past 11 tracks, delivered in a deadpan spoken word:
Thou art my master… Satan.
Gotcha.
If you can handle all the over the topness, “GoM” might just float your boat amid high seas of semen to Leviathan’s western shores. While this is something that certainly won’t inhabit my daily playlist, when I feel like burning down the temples of the false idol Ackercoke will do the job. Frighteningly, the “black metal” parts don’t cause me too much suffering either – not a good sign at all.
Gotta mention the nice tits on the cover. Hooray for tits. No matter how many virgins he violates, the Infernal Lord never gets tired of seeing a good set of knockers. Smacker(withyour)cocke. Fuck! Bollocks! The lorry to Fleet Street! I was so close to finishing this review without making the obvious joke.
- Information
- Released: 2001
- Label: Peaceville
- Website: www.ackercocke.com
- Band
- Jason Mendonça: vocals, guitars
- Paul Scanlan: guitars
- Peter Theobald: bass
- Martin Bonsoir: electronics
- David Gray: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Of Menstrual Blood and Semen
- 02. A Skin for Dancing In
- 03. Betwixt Iniquitatis and Prostigiators
- 04. Horns of Baphomet
- 05. Masks of God
- 06. The Serpent
- 07. Fortune My Foe
- 08. Infernal Rites
- 09. He Is Risen
- 10. Breaking Silence
- 11. Initiation
- 12. Ceremony of Nine Angles
