Do you pine for the grimy years of Blasphemy?  Have you always hoped they would drop one last dirty bomb of skinhead ignorance?  Did you spend month’s booze budget for die hard versions of the last reissues?  If so, then dudes… there are a LOT of options in lo-fi bestial bands who have adopted that early style of mausoleum echoing, Satanic metal of death.  With Impure being a new, and notable follower of those black arts.  I probably don’t have to, but will mention the more ‘well known’ angel fucking sadists of comparative old kin such as Archgoat, Weregoat, or Sadomator etc.  While Impure is not alone in this lane by any means, I think they deliver a finishing, 32-move SNES combo against a glut of lesser contenders that often abide too closely to the manual.

What does Impure uniquely offer that might appease the curmudgeonly, heard-it-all demo(n)graphic that frequent the Nuclear War Now message board?  To start (and this may cause more than a few well-worn, leather jacketed arms to cross)…Impure’s version has a vaguely modern clarity of mix.  Emphasis on the use of ‘clear’, not ‘clean’.  Mind you, this is in comparison to that of the aforementioned bands. In the way that the antichrist figure is often presented in literature and film: Sharp in a custom all black suit, hypnotic charm, and a centuries old wine collection, but still a fully active participant in huge sex magic rituals that always leave blood stained leather gloves, and at least one virgin dead (Nasty. The same ones from the last sex magic orgy.  Satan has no regard.).  Don’t get it confused. It is still 100% mausoleum echoing metal of death, just with a dark sophistication.

If you just take a few minutes to listen to track one, “Death Secretion”, you will KNOW what else Impure has to offer. [Waits 3:03]. It’s the element that is thee fundamental core of metal music: dangerous, god defiling riffs!  You aren’t so bummed on the ‘clearly defined mix’ -thing after all.  Satan’s Eclipse has a generously wide-open low end, which insulates the mid-low range guitar riffs like a yak skin cloak.  The drumming is a steady pounding with two modes: Simple doomy thudding and angry-drunk muscled near blasting. Setting pace for leagues of damned souls rowing the decaying ships, to which they are eternally shacked, down the river Styx.  Giving the corrupted, chamber-echoing verses their anchor through the album.

In the demon dimension, this style could be termed ‘Satan beat’; Metal of death that sounds like it might’ve been produced by the late Joe Meek.  A producer of cult fame whose life reflected the wildest pulp novels of the time.  Had he lived, would have probably made fast friends with a guy like Dark Throne’s Fenriz.  However, he would’ve appreciated their recent output more than the scene approved classics. Meek dosed swinging 60’s pop with gin and Quaaludes; bee swarm guitars, maximum spring reverb, and for the time, drumming to match the accelerating heartbeat, soaked in the devil’s cocktail. In cult metal, the term may bring to mind Negative Planes singular Stained Glass Revelations.  Although they never reach that level of tiki totem entrancement, a song like “Sapphic Initiation” has just enough surf-demento reverb on the guitar (and everything else really) to induce the same sinister smile as that of ‘evil’ version Bill S. Preston Esquire.  It’s fun to be evil sometimes.

The following is a list of recommended activities while listening to Satan’s Eclipse: 

• Aggressively baptize babies in red wine, pledging their souls to Nyarlathotep
• Drink mead alone in a lava rock sauna
• Secretly study esoteric Gnostic manuscripts in a vault beneath the Vatican Library, then fighting dozens of martial arts trained Archbishop clones to reach the surface
• Listen to Blood On The Alter and Satan’s Eclipse at the same time. Get crazy.  Maybe it conjures a nether-portal in your beer stein.

[Visit the band's website]

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