Description
Polish pressed music cassette. Clear cassette with printed paper label. The Polish MG release has the track listing in different order and also shows the wrong cover artwork taken from the Psychomorphia EP. A fun odditiy to own for a serious Messiah collector
Poland is probably the country that had the most record labels in the world that only released cassettes. But even though there were lots of labels the market was still small as they only printed these for their own market inside of Poland. And a label in one town maybe lacked the distribution for another town and so on. A Warzaw or Krakow label might print more copies of a tape then labels from a smaller town. So even if there are thousands of releases you will notice how rare some are if you start to try to list the catalog number of one particular label. Some cassettes just rarely shows up. One of the bigger cassettes labels were Takt Music in Warsaw and another one was MG Records, which was a sub-label of GM Records (both used the same logo during the early 90s). Just like Takt they started in 1990 and existed up until 1994 and during those 4 years they released approx 3000 tapes. Under the name of GM Records they started a pressing plant in Poland after these cassette years was over.
Like precursors Venom and Hellhammer and successors Darkthrone and their ilk, Messiah fall into the “less-is-more” category of heavy metal. One listen to their 1986 debut Hymn to Abramelin reveals the production to be nearly non-existent, the songwriting at times underdone, the musicianship often sketchy (the drummer can’t really keep time, but otherwise he’s great!), but the end result to be ultimately brilliant! Yes, it’s all very contradictory, but welcome to wacky world of mid-’80s European underground metal, where crude visionaries like Destruction, the aforementioned Hellhammer and, yes, Messiah, all merit thrones as prone to worship by the heavy metal faithful as those of far more commercially successful bands like Kreator, Celtic Frost, and Mercyful Fate. In effect, Hymn to Abramelin earned such distinction because of its simplicity — by showing the kids that metal, like punk, could be performed with more heart than technical expertise. Propagating the white-knuckled aggression and anti-social, often Satanic lyrics typically attractive to heavy metal fans didn’t hurt, either, and Messiah exploit that formula to the max on highlights including the instrumental title track and vicious thrashings like “Messiah,” “Space Invaders,” and “Total Maniac” — many of which are introduced by perfectly apropos zombie-like, baritone recitations of demonic intent. Another favorite, “Thrashing Madness” is just that: two-and-a-half-minutes of frenetic instrumental flailing punctuated by horrid shrieks of despair; closing epic “The Dentist” finally breaks with the ultra-simple template to entertain some surprisingly inventive and complex riff orchestrations. No surprise, then, that Hymn to Abramelin remains a favorite example of its kind to serious metal fans.
Track list:
1. Hymn To Abramelin
2. Messiah
3. Anarchus
4. Space Invaders
5. Total Maniac
6. Thrashing Madness
7. Future Agressor
8. Empire Of The Damned
9. The Dentist