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Thanatos: Realm of ecstasy

15/07/10 || Habakuk

The late eighties/early nineties brought forth a small, high-quality branch of death metal that grew somewhere between Germany and the Netherlands with Asphyx, Morgoth, Sinister and well, the likes, because that’s where the lists of more “well-known” acts pretty much ends. Don’t ask me about any Good ol’ Days details, because at the time I pretty much grew the first hair on my head. One of the bands that can easily slip through the massive historic cracks are Dutch deathers Thanatos, an early baby of Stephan Gebédi who much later joined ranks with a few of his baldie friends to form Hail of Bullets. Thanatos, so say the metal archives, actually “are famous for being the first Dutch extreme music/extreme metal band.” Probably correct, except for the bit about being famous.

On “Realm of Ecstasy”, their second regular full-length, they take mere influences from the other mentioned bands while otherwise doing their own thing. It’s not that this thing is anything particularly special or “out there”, as it’s clearly just death metal, but in a way it doesn’t sound similar to any other one album I’ve heard from the era.

You will recognize a few slower doomish riffs that move onwards to slamming 4/4 grooves à la Asphyx, but the overall sound differs greatly from that band.
These simplistic, slam-heavy riffs are met by thrash metal-style solos and other fast fretboard work, with the whole thing occasionally breaking down to a double bass-heavy chugging groovefest. In that, “Realm of ecstasy” shows an interesting, probably accidental mixture of rawness and more sophisticated elements. That means the songwriting is kind of raw in its complexity, so while there are a lot of good riffs, at times they seem almost piled on top of each other. Stop –

Go – This gives the album a mix-and-match feel, yet still you’ll find some great song progressions, weird off-beat timings and little details that show these guys already had some potential back in ’92. As a whole, the album doesn’t exactly sound like it was recorded in one take, and the very crisp drumming gives a thrashy feel to the decidedly mean-sounding, downtuned dual guitar assault.
The vocals have almost no rasp to them, but present themselves rather as a fast, guttural shouting (courtesy of Mr. Gebédi himself), another element that doesn’t correspond with what (in this case) the vocalists of the bands around them shoved up their throats at the time. RAILLGHHHT, Mr. van Drunen?

That’s right, some fresh air is blown into your veteran ears. On “Realm of Ecstasy”, Thanathos don’t even sound like their own newer material either – no wonder, since they split up after this album and reformed only eight years later with “Angelic encounters” – which sounds more like their compatriots’ work in Sinister by the way. Partly due to having Mr. Double-A, Aad Kloosterwaard on drums, I guess.

So, the bottom line is: if you have an interest in European Death metal from the golden days that still doesn’t walk the same old trodden paths, give the T-boys a go – nevermind the misspelt album title (!), terrible demo bonus tracks, or the butt-ugly cover artwort, but don’t expect being knocked out of your socks completely, either. So, a fittingly solid score for “Realm of Ecstasy”, unfortunately with a less fitting notion of containing mere run-of-the-mill material:

Information
Released: 1992
Label: Shark Records
Website: www.thanatos.info
Band
Stephan Gebédi: vocals, guitars
Ed Boeser: bass
Erwin de Brouwer: guitars
Remo van Arnhem: drums

Tracklist
01. And Jesus wept
02. Tied up, sliced up
03. Realm of ecstasy
04. Mankind’s afterbirth
05. In praise of lust
06. Perpetual misery
07. Human combustion
08. Reincarnation
09. Terminal breath
10. War (bonus)
11. The meaning of life (bonus)
12. Bodily dismemberment (bonus)
13. A-Thanasia (bonus)

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