Band:	Christian Death
Album:	Deathwish
Style:	Death rock, Gothic rock
Release date:	1981

01. Deathwish
02. Romeo's Distress
03. Dogs
04. Desperate Hell
05. Spiritual Cramp
06. Cavity (1st Communion)

"Deathwish" contains 6 songs which are the first recordings of Christian Death recorded in a small studio (Orange County Studios), when Rozz Williams was only 16, before the band signed to Frontier Records for the monumental debut album "Only Theatre of Pain". Some of these songs would be a part of a punk compilation album named "Hell comes to your House" released under the label Frontier Records during the 1981. However, only "Dogs" was released with this compilation. From the 6 songs of this mini-cd "Romeo's Distress", "Spiritual Cramp" and "Cavity" have been added one year later to "Only Theatre of Pain" but a little bit changed with better production.

From the very beginning of Christian Death Rozz Williams (a.k.a. Roger Painter) showed that he was a restless mind, a real artist but from the opposite side, a Dadaist. The cover is a reproduction of the painting "Who shall deliver me" by Fernand Khnopff. Reverse has a picture depicting a child sat upon the coffin of a dead woman (Alfred Kubin - "la fiancee de la mort"). The cd contains a 12-page booklet (in French and English) with 4 poems ("Love of Hospital.The Night" by Iwan Gilkin, "La Mort" by Emile Verhaeren, "Evil Prayers" by Remy de Gourmont and "Le Vampire" by Baudelaire), the text of "Soul of Dirt" and some excellent grotesque pencil drawings (notably by Max Klinger).

This album was the very beginning of Rozz Williams' journey into the world of Art, a journey that tragically ended, after a delightful course, on the 1st of April 1998...

Great guitar riffing begins "Deathwish" and Williams' stunning descriptive voice enters interpreting in an astonishing way and so the rest line-up of the band accompany him doing their best with Rikk Agnew on the guitar with punk/goth riffing, James McGearty on the haunting pulsating bass lines and George Belanger on the drums with his rhythmic and intense drumming forming a monumental song. The waving bass lines give birth to the following "Romeo's Distress", an all-time-classic Christian Death song and the rhythmic drumming follows. The melodic guitar riffing accompanies Williams' utterly descriptive voice singing in full passion and dismay and as the song goes on it becomes more intense with the guitars evoking a distressful atmosphere escalating along with Rozz Williams this brilliant composition.

"Dogs" lets the album flow with Rozz Williams almost reciting while some effects and the guitars accompany him letting the song go on this way evoking an obscure paranoiac atmosphere. Eerie cries surround the listener in fear at the very beginning of the following "Desperate Hell". Rozz sings with a trembling almost-crying voice while the stunning guitar riffing evokes an intense claustrophobic atmosphere along with the pulsating bass lines that escalate the song when they enter in an intense way. Maybe Rozz Williams was living in a "desperate hell" and needed a way out of it. Maybe suicide was the only way out...

The stunning guitars along with the imposing rhythm section let the album flow wonderfully opening the following opus, "Spiritual Cramp", accompanying Williams' trembling descriptive voice. Williams expresses wonderfully his extremely caustic lyrics about society and religion and the instruments dress his lyrics in an appropriate way. "Cavity (1st Communion)" follows and it is a mid-tempo composition with Rozz Williams interpreting his caustic lyrics in an appropriate way. The guitars are slow, I could say, and they become more intense when the song reaches the point where Rozz sings in full passion "The price of red Death is the price of true love" escalating the song with the drumming becoming imposing and the guitars faster with the song reaching the end with Williams singing in a crying way "blood" as the guitars sound paranoiac.

A must-have for all the Rozz Williams and the true Christian Death fans!

"UTV: Anything you'd like to state in the closing? What can we expect from Rozz in the future?

Rozz Williams: Expect the UNEXPECTED!!"