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The Project Hate MCMXCIX: Hate, dominate, congregate, eliminate

27/02/04 || Statik Majik

This is one of those albums that needs to be listened to from the beginning to the end. Nope, it´s not a theme album, if that´s what you think. The songs support each other and create this “journey” that needs to be experienced as a whole. You´ll notice this when you listen to it. The order of the tracks is well thought, as are the song titles and lyrics.

What´s different on this album compared to previous The Project Hate albums? Well, this is the first one with the new female singer, Jo Enckell. And Petter S. Freed is now a full member of the band. He participated on the songwriting/composing process with Lord K, which means you have to people to blame for the kick-ass guitar riffs.

On the first album Lord K wrote most the lyrics and on the second one the lyrics for Mia Ståhl. But here Jörgen and Jonna are responsible for the lyrics they sing. I have to say that Jo did a good job, to say the least. This probably gave Lord K much more time to concentrate on the actual songwriting/composing/producing process. And that shows. The music is as perfect as it gets. You can hear that all the elements here are more than well thought. I mean, you don´t just throw in some techno junglebeats between heavy guitars and hope it sounds good. No. That takes alot of time and thinking to make the technoparts suite the evil atmosphere this album has. And Lord K managed to do that. There´s one word to describe the music TPH plays, and that´s “contrast”. Yes, “domination” would be another but we´re not getting there yet. “Contrast” it is, both music and vocalwise.

Morgan Lundin from 2 Ton Predator did some backing vocals on the last 2 TPH albums, and he´s here too. Although this time TPH decided to bring few more guest vocalists to the album. Emperor Magus Caligula (Dark Funeral) and Rickard Alriksson (Genocide SS) give nice extra spice for the songs on “Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate”. Sometimes it´s so hard to point out who sings what in the songs, especially when trying to spot Caligula´s vocals. You see, Caligula happens to be an excellent growler and Jörgen just makes the situation even more confusing cos he can do insane screams as well as Caligula. And Rickard does some of the lowest growls on “Nailed” I ever heard. Yeah, we´re talking Chris Barnes-low here. With the exception that you can actually hear what Rickard is growling. But again, Jörgen is know for being capable of doing extremely low growls too. Well, what you can definitely point out from the songs is Mogge´s vocals, cos he´s not an actual growler. Now, are we confused yet?

Jo Enckell does an amazing job. She´s more than good choice for being the contrast needed with all these growlers. Her absolutely beautiful, angelic voice makes the growls and screams, made mostly by Jörgen and Caligula, sound even more evil. Yes, that is possible.

Now that we got the basic info for the album covered, let´s take a look at the each song. Is that really needed, you ask? Hell yes it is.

The first track is “Hate”. And that´s what this song is all about. Hate in it´s every possible form. And from the very first seconds you´ll hear that the production on this album is top-notch. I never heard any guitars sound this heavy. Shit, you can almost feel their weight on your shoulders. And just listen to the bass. Yes, the bass. On some albums the sound of bass kind of gets lost in the midst of the drums and guitars, but that´s not the case here. And the drums? Yeah, it´s a fucken drum machine, but it just doesn’t sound like one. This is the way to use machines: since it´s possible to make it sound real, why not do so? And that´s exactly what TPH did here.

If I had to point out the best song from this album, I´d probably say it´s either “Nailed” or “Eliminate”. At first for me it was “Eliminate”, but after getting more familiar with the album I ended up enjoying this one even more. There is just that “something” on “Nailed” that makes it so damn good. The junglebeats in this song are fucken brilliant. And just listen to backing vocals from Caligula and Rickard Alriksson.

Next on the line is “Dominate”. The only “good” song on this album. Say what? What I mean is that the rest of the songs fall to the “damn good one” or “excellent” categories. Don´t get me wrong, there´s nothing even remotely bad on this song, it´s just the other songs are way much better. I´d say this is pretty basic TPH track. Oh, it´s also the only song where Jörgen and Jonna get to sing together. That´s right, no guest appearances here.

“Deviate” has the most insane basslines on this album, if you ask me. Listen to the parts just before the actual chorus line. Hear it? Now, does that sound good, or damn good? I´d vote for the latter. And the quotes form a certain movie fit the theme of this song fucken well.

The first song I heard from this album was “Congregate”. Actually I heard an instrumental version from it played by K and Mazza during summer 2002 when I was at K´s place. So I think this is also the first track that was made for this album. In my opinion this song has the best riff on this album. It´s so damn catchy and heavy. If AC/DC would make this kind of metal, their riffs would probably sound like this. And that was definitely a compliment, in case you didn´t quite get “it”.

Next we have a 12 minutes of sheer brutality in the shape of a song “Burn”. The vocal wars between Jörgen/Caligula and Jörgen/Mogge are absolutely brilliant. The vocal war part was originally recorded for Deadmarch´s song called “Bloodstained”, but since the Deadmarch album was never released, Lord K decided to redo those parts for this song. And this time it ended up as it was originally planned: J doing the lead vocals and having more than excellent guest vocalist supporting him. And Jo sounds so fucken beautiful on this song too. You just have to give props to a woman singing “All christians must burn for Satan”.

One of the reasons I’ve always enjoyed “Eliminate” alot, is that ms. Enckell does beautiful job here. And again I consider this to be perfectly placed track. Jo´s vocals are much softer and more emotional here than on the first 6 tracks. When she sings the “Though we run, we can´t escape the flames…” part, it gives me shivers nearly ever time I hear this song. Her parts on this song also give the listener a hint what to expect from the last track of this album. And what about Jörgen? Again he does amazing job with his growls. He sounds so evil, full of aggression and blasphemy that it´s not even funny anymore. Just listen to his tone of voice when he growls the “There ain’t enough holy water in this world to cleanse me.”

“Weep” is absolutely perfect track to end this album with. After 7 songs and over an hour of full scale Armageddon this is exactly what you need. What´s also exceptional in this track, is that it was solely written with Jo´s vox in mind, and that shows. No growls or screams here. No fast and heavy guitar playing. Far from it. Jo´s soothing, impressive voice has more than enough strength to carry out thru the whole song. And even if this song differs alot from the other tracks, it doesn’t feel like out of place. To me this track was the final proof that Jo definitely is THE female singer for The Project Hate and doesn’t pale at all in comparison to their ex-female singer Mia Ståhl.

This album is not quite as fast as the two previous studio albums, but it´s 100 times heavier. The guitar riffs are insane, the songwriting/composing is more thought-out and the performance from all the participants is a fucken textbook example of professionalism if you ask me. And I can´t point out enough about the production here. Everyfuckenthing on this album sounds fucken good, even in low volumes. And if you care: I don´t listen to music on loud volumes that often. I haven´t found the volume button on my stereos yet, like K would say.

“Hate, Dominate, Congregate, Eliminate” is to me what Dark Funeral is to Lord K: Home.

I´d give a full ten for this one, but I just happen to have that principle never to give full 10´s to anyone or anything. Nine is the maximum you´ll ever see me giving, and there´s not many of those albums I´m willing to give that. So nine it is.

9/10.

Information
Released: 2003
Label: Threeman Recordings
Website: www.theprojecthate.net
Band
Lord K Philipson: guitar, bass, programming and keyboards
Petter S Freed: guitar
Jo Enckell: vocals
Jörgen Sandström: vocals

Tracklist
01. Hate
02. Nailed
03. Dominate
04. Deviate
05. Congregate
06. Burn
07. Eliminate
08. Weep

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