Year: 2024
Label: Misantropia Records/Black Metal Maniac

Although the Finnish black metal scene has during the past 25 years spawned quite a few internationally acclaimed acts, the underground is of course a lot larger and many are the acts that dwell in the shadows. In essence, for every Satanic Warmaster, there are quite a few Epäkristuses.

Epäkristus were a black metal band active between 2002 and 2017, formed around the core of vocalist/guitarist Vitutor and drummer Vomitor. During their career, they released four demos, a couple of splits and some compilation tracks. They never got around to recording an album for whatever reason. Excluding the splits, this compilation CD contains everything the band ever released.

The compilation presents the demos in chronological order, which is a logical choice, but also works well in Epäkristus’ case. This clearly highlights the evolution the band underwent, and aptly underscores it wasn’t due to a lack of quality or progression that the band never got signed.

The first demo Sotaa Saatana Sotaa from 2002 is still pretty rough around the edges. The musicianship isn’t the tightest and the songs are a bit wobbly. The sound is decent, but the cavernous death metal style growls aren’t a perfect fit. The music is pretty fierce, but some of the impact is lost due to recording being a bit sloppy and unfocused.

But that was just the starting point. From the second demo onwards, Epäkristus start getting their package together in an entirely different fashion. Especially the guitar playing gets a lot tighter, the drumming a lot more precise and the vocals, shifting towards more typical black metal snarls, are absolutely fierce. 2003’s The Greatest Gift Of Life Is The Awareness Of Death is a considerable improvement on the first demo, and already outdoes quite a few proper album releases that have garnered cult acclaim.

The remaining two demos – 2004’s Funeral Fuck and 2005’s Untame The Beast – follow suit. Each is overall an improvement on its predecessor. The steps forward are seldom massive, and on some fronts the band may take a step backwards. An example of a step backwards is the sound of Funeral Fuck: a bit muddier than the second demo. But undeniably, Epäkristus became better with each demo. And on the compilation tracks from 2009’s Metal On Metal III, we hear Epäkristus in their sharpest, most mature form.

Stylewise, Epäkristus stuck to a rather tried and true, conventional form of raw early noughties black metal. Buzzsawing tremolo riffs, predominantly speedy and blasting but still organic tempos – no over triggering here! – and vicious shrieked vocals. As was typical for the time, the bass is often barely audible, and is apparently, according to the line-up listings of the various demos, entirely missing on a few. So nothing particularly original here, but especially on the later demos and the compilation tracks, done better than a lot of the competition. But honestly, considering how stereotypical the sound is, there’s not much point in describing it in several paragraphs – if you know your black metal, the above will give you a pretty good idea of what Epäkristus sound like.

Listening to this compilation CD, the fact that Epäkristus never got around to doing a proper album stands out as one of the many small injustices of the world. Certainly, everyone of us has heard far worse albums by lesser, more adulated bands.

However, this Misantropia Records’ and Black Metal Maniac’s nice looking compilation goes some way towards correcting that wrong. Finally, Epäkristus have their material released by a proper label with proper distribution, and there’s at least a chance for people beyond those who were involved in the noughties Finnish demo scene to hear this stuff.

As an epitaph for a band long dead now, Satan, Sex And War is a fitting one. It shows a band who constantly moved forward, even if with small steps at a time; a band who obviously didn’t make originality an end unto itself, and as such chose a rather typical approach but executed it with quality; a band, who by all rights would have deserved more attention in their day.

Epäkristus doesn’t have an online presence; buy the CD from Misantropia Records’ webshop