The latest Peaceville re-release marks the completion of Gehenna’s Moonfog trilogy. Naturally these were all reissued in entirely the wrong order, so 2nd Moonfog album ‘Murder’ is the final one to get the Peaceville treatment. After splitting their fanbase by abandoning the ethereal and symphonic style of black metal that they practiced on their early demos and first few albums, they instead embraced a more direct fusion of the death and black metal styles, choosing aggression over atmosphere. Despite the inevitable backlash from some quarters, the resulting album ‘Adimiron Black’, was a tight and interesting album if perhaps lacking a little something in outright style. Nobody was quite prepared for what came next though. ‘Murder’ was so far removed from the original ideal of Gehenna that even the fans who stuck with them through the change in style found this one hard to stomach; yet not quite as much as Gehenna themselves, with guitarist Dolgar and bassist E.N. Death both quitting the band upon completion of recording, the band going into hiatus shortly after.
Following the standard atmospheric intro track, the opening bars of ‘Murder’ showed just how far Gehenna had strayed from their roots. Now favouring a downtuned death thrash assault, all traces of the nuanced black metal of the past were gone; in their place, an attempt to conquer through bludgeoning brutality. In many respects, ‘Murder’ is not a bad track at all with its simple yet insistent and antagonistic lead riff, and vocals that owe more to Slayer than anything of a raw BM persuasion; yet it feels very much like a demo. This is down to a number of factors, namely the internal struggles within the band with the lack of direction, and the production itself, where the engineers at Mansion Studio were not experienced or enthusiastic enough in the field of extreme metal to produce the desired results. Other tracks such as ‘Worthy Exit’ and ‘Devout Dementia’ show more in common with the blackened death style of ‘Adimiron Black’ and sound far more polished as a result, yet these are the exception rather than the rule as the brutality lumbers forth more in the fashion of an uncoordinated wrestler fumbling through some loosely practiced moves, rather than a cold and clinical destructive machine.
Whilst history often looks more kindly on those albums that were given an initial mauling the first time around, the same cannot be said of ‘Murder’. Its legacy really speaks for itself in many ways, given the implosion of the band in the months following its release. Even if ‘Murder’ were to be considered as a work in its own right; perhaps considered as a side project rather than as Gehenna themselves, it still fares no better. Half developed song concepts allied to production values better associated with a self-recording all added up to a distinctly underwhelming product. As ever with Peaceville’s reissues there is a plethora of bonus material to savour for Gehenna completists, although in this case, the majority are alternative versions and instrumental tracks from the ‘Murder’ sessions, although I’m giving an extra half a mark for the inclusion of a cover of Mayhem’s ‘Cursed In Eternity’, which may not be a patch on the original, but stands head and shoulders above the majority of material on here.
As much of a disappointment as ‘Murder’ remains, Gehenna did make a successful return in 2005 with ‘WW’, which was a welcome return to a black metal style, albeit not the symphonic style craved by many. Although another break up followed, rumours gathered pace a couple of years ago that Gehenna were ready to return once more, and an album’s worth of material is in place. With an appearance booked at Wacken later this year, perhaps that elusive new album is close to becoming a reality. We can only hope that if it is, the lessons of ‘Murder’ were well learned.
(5.5/10 Lee Kimber)
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