Band:	The Meads Of Asphodel
Album:	The Excommunication Of Christ
Style:	Experimental black metal
Release date:	2001
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. The Excommunication Of Christ
02. Angelwhore
03. The Watchers Of Catal Huyuk
04. Agrat Bat Malab
05. Weeping Tears Of Angel Light
06. Bene Ha Elohim
07. Assault And Battery
08. Jezebel And The Philistines
09. Pale Bread Hunger
10. Rise In Godless Hell
11. Disembodied Voices Of Melchizedek
12. Falling With Lightning Rays Beamed Through The Blazing Firmament Towards The Untended Burial Ground Of Bharsag
13. Calling All Monsters

Let us observe our surroundings and try to figure them out, shall we? We've got knights. Those knights are wielding swords and shields. And there's the sound of some antiquated Italian language snaking its way into our eardrums. No, this isn't the Renaissance fair. And no, we're not in a church. But we are in the presence of Metatron, so you're getting warmer.

Fans of The Meads Of Asphodel who have not gone in chronological order with listening to their discography may find themselves a bit surprised with The Excommunication Of Christ, the band's first full length. The music here is easily their rawest and most intense, a far cry for the borderline Avantgarde nature of their recent material, as evidenced especially by Angelwhore" and that one with the extremely long title (a notorious trademark of the band on every album). For black metal, however, even if hard-hitting at points, the songwriting at work on this debut is incredibly catchy, demonstrating that even in their earliest stages, The Meads Of Asphodel had a very strong sense of how to suck their listeners in.

Thankfully, when I say that the music on The Excommunication Of Christ is the band's rawest and most abrasive, that's still not really saying much. As with all albums from them, a core sound is difficult to identify, and even though we can pretty fairly call it black metal, this is still a very shaky label. "Agrat Bat Mabab" and "Rise In Godless Hell," for example, flirt around with many Eastern elements, that the band would go on to refine into a more focused form on Damascus Steel. Spoken word abounds, often representing a prophetic, ominous voice of final judgment.The Meads Of Asphodel have also covered Hawkwind's "Assault And Battery," which is without question one of the best metal covers of a non metal song. And, even more interesting, the Hawkwind love doesn't just end there, for the band also recruited their former guitarist Huw Lloyd Langton for this recording, whose very particular style of soloing helps to add an even deeper dimension to the music.

All of these multiple facets of personality on The Excommunication Of Christ are what established The Meads Of Asphodel right from the get go as a band willing to defy convention and create things for us that we haven't heard before. But at the same time, it's a bit of a "walk before you run" album. The experimentation is there, but the band still played it safe a little bit by mostly sticking to a more familiar sound. So The Excommunication Of Christ for The Meads Of Asphodel is somewhat like what Vikinglar Veldi is for Enslaved. That is, it is probably their most orthodox-sounding album, but it nonetheless retained a distinction of identity that helped to plant many seeds for the experimental leanings the band would gravitate more towards in the future.


On eagles' wings they mount and soar
To follow the path of the angel whore
To seduce the souls of mortal kind
To bleed their souls and make them blind
And the devil grasped at the gurgling rill
Overhung with waters still
Til a thousand years shall arise once more
The celestial terror of the angel whore