{"id":52543,"date":"2016-07-26T18:09:59","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T23:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=52543"},"modified":"2016-07-26T18:10:19","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T23:10:19","slug":"infestdead-satanic-serenades-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2016\/infestdead-satanic-serenades-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Infestdead | Satanic Serenades"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Sr. Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Infestdead\"It’s pretty well established at this point that Dan Swano is Heavy Metal’s true Renaissance Man, right? The Swedish singer\/multi-instrumentalist\/producer has been in bands as varied as Progressive\/Melodic rocking Nightingale, Melodic Death Metal band Edge of Sanity and now atmospheric\/Progressive Death Metal band Witherscape, not to mention producing works by Opeth, Katatonia and Dissection. In the mid 1990s though, Swano tried his hand at heavy, evil, old school Death Metal with the band Infestdead. Infestdead’s catalog is as controversial as it is hard to find, but it has been resurrected by Century Media (and the Divebomb label in the U.S.) with the two-disc set titled Satanic Serenades<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Swano and vocalist Dread (Tormented, ex-Marduk) set out to make American-style old school Death Metal in the vein of Deicide and Morbid Angel, and they succeeded brilliantly. Infestdead played extremely fast, extremely heavy and extremely intense death metal, complete with the requisite blast beats, blackened, thrashing riffs and guttural (but surprisingly varied) vocals. This is not melodic, symphonic, progressive or any other variety of death metal. It’s about as pure and relentless as death metal gets. <\/p>\n

The lyrics to these songs are as aggressive and extreme as the music. Like Deicide, Infestdead’s lyrics are anti-Christian and obnoxiously Satanic. There’s not a lot of room for nuance in \u201cAntichristian Song #37\u201d or \u201cThe Desecration of Christ.\u201d If you have any religious leanings (and even if you don’t), the lyrics here may prove too offensive to simply enjoy the music. You’ve been warned.<\/p>\n

Given how hard it has been to track down the Infestdead catalog recently, a collection like Satanic Serenade<\/em>s is long overdue. It collects all the available Infestdead material \u2013 1996’s Killing Christ<\/em> EP, 1997’s Hellfuck<\/em> full-length, 1999’s JesuSatan<\/em> full-length and two demo tracks from 1993. All of the songs have been newly remastered by Dan Swano himsef, and the liner notes feature lyrics and updated artwork. <\/p>\n

If you’re a fan of sinister, blasphemous old school Death Metal like Deicide, Morbid Angel and Vital Remains, Satanic Serenades<\/em> is a gift from the gates of Hell. Infestdead played this kind of metal extremely well, and this collection is the perfect way to get their entire discography in one shot. You’ll go to Hell for listening to it, but at least the soundtrack will be killer.<\/p>\n

Genre: Death Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nDan Swano (g) (b) (d)
\nAndreas \u201cDread\u201d Axelsson (v)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n\tDisc 1
\n1.\tRe-Resurrection
\n2.\tChristiansanity
\n3.\tBorn to Burn
\n4.\tJesuSatan
\n5.\tUndead Screaming Sins
\n6.\tThe Burning of the Son
\n7.\tSinister
\n8.\tEvil2
\n9.\tAntichristian Song #37
\n10.\tBlack Night (Deep Purple cover)
\n11.\tBurn Me (Without the Grace of God)
\n12.\tDead Earth <\/p>\n

\tDisc 2
\n1.\tRebirth
\n2.\tThe Desecration of Christ
\n3.\tInfest the Dead
\n4.\tThe New Empire
\n5.\tMercenary, Merciless
\n6.\tBorn. Nailed.
\n7.\tThe Plot to Kill Jesus
\n8.\tBlaspheme the Abbess
\n9.\tPolterchrist
\n10.\tSacrifice the Saviour
\n11.\tHellfuck
\n12.\tDarkness Complete
\n13.\tHaunting the Holy
\n14.\tHeaven Denied
\n15.\tSalvation Incomplete
\n16.\tBewitch the Virgin
\n17.\tAngeldemon
\n18.\tWorld Inverted
\n19.\tSon of the Darkside
\n20.\tHellborn
\n21.\tSatanic
\n22.\tAmen
\n23.\tBestial Genocide
\n24.\tThe Rising
\n25.\tI’ll Be Black
\n26.\tIn the Spell of Satan
\n27.\tSave Me From the Hands of Christ
\n28.\tFucked by Satan
\n29.\tBurn Me (Without the Grace of God) (1994 Remix)<\/p>\n

Label: Divebomb Records<\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 8\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Sr. Columnist — It’s pretty well established at this point that Dan Swano is Heavy Metal’s true Renaissance Man, right? The Swedish singer\/multi-instrumentalist\/producer has been in bands as varied as Progressive\/Melodic […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":52563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13652],"tags":[2317,1092,923,12557,12558],"class_list":{"0":"post-52543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2016","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-death-metal","10":"tag-divebomb-records","11":"tag-infestdead","12":"tag-satanic-serenades"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}