Band:	Acheron (USA-OH)
Album:	Decade Infernus
Style:	Blackened death metal
Release date:	2004
A review by:	Deadsoulman

Disc I
01. Thou Art Lord
02. God Is Dead
03. Slaughterization For Satan
04. Blessed By Damnation
05. Immortal Sigil
06. Let Us Depart
07. Satanic Erotica
08. One With Darkness
09. Fuck The Ways Of Christ
10. Lifeforce
11. The Enochian Key
12. Six Six Six
13. Enter Thy Coven
14. Final Harvest
15. Ave Satanas
16. Prayer Of Hell

Disc II
01. Out Of Body
02. Alla Xul
03. To Thee We Confess
04. Shehamforash
05. Purification Day
06. Hekal Tiamat
07. Seven Deadly Sins
08. Cursed Nazarene
09. Necromanteion Communion
10. Baptism For Devlyn Alexandra
11. Legions Of Hatred
12. Unholy Praises
13. Summoning The Master
14. Voices Within
15. Undead Celebration
16. The Entity

Acheron was formed back in 1988 by the Rev. Vincent Crowley (he's a reverend in the Satanic Church or whatever...) who left the band Nocturnus to create an entity all dedicated to the glory of Satan. Now they treat their fans with this compilation that sums up the first ten years of their career. So here it is, this double album with thirty-two tracks... Of course, it is useless for the real fans who have their whole discography. But for random people like me, who don't really know them, it is a real goldmine.

So Acheron plays Satanic death metal sometimes on the edge of black metal, with lots of accelerations and the typical growls and screams of Mr Crowley. The lyrics are pro-Satan or anti-Christians (of course). The music itself is very technical, with great performances of the guitarists on the at least thousand solos, but it has nothing really uncommon or original. This is your usual Satanic death. But this band is all about the atmospheres. You don't notice it at first, but there is a lot of atmospheric and gloomy keyboard parts and arpeggios in the background that bring a welcome melodic side to the songs, to make something close to what Vital Remains does for example. This way of playing the leyboards really amazes me, because it sounds totally satanic (can't find another word for that) and disturbing.

The songs are full of aggressive and brilliant riffs, sometimes almost thrashy, with a lot of subtile arrangements that show a real talent in songwriting. Most songs have catchy choruses, like 'Blessed By Damnation', 'Fuck The Ways Of Christ', 'Out Of Body' or 'Seven Deadly Sins' for example. The vocals are excellent as well as the spoken parts that sound like a hysterical evangelist. The most stunning feature is the production: the sound of the songs from 1991 is as good as for those from 1998!

The music, the atmospheres, the lyrics, the production, everything is gathered to hail the greatness of the Evil One (or say they say, I for one never cared much for that). Everything is so great that I can't even pick one or two highlights... As I said before, if you already know all their albums, you don't really need this compilation. For the rest, this is definitely a must-have.