This band does not to things by halves or take the easy and quickest route in the slightest. Firstly, only a Roman numerologist would remember their full name (pertaining to the year 1999 by the way). Then you get to the equally unwieldy album title, the song titles, the song lengths and indeed the bands album running times. Also if you were to take a look at the revolving carousel that is the line-up, you would see that there are many ex members and indeed before they embarked upon this, their eighth full length album there have been no less than three changes as members were “relieved of duty.” Put together in 1998 prior to collapse of the world as the new millennium and the bug that went with it, this bunch of Swedes were a project helmed by Lord K (Kenth) Philipson of Dark Funeral (and countless other bands) and Jörgen Sandström of Grave (and countless….) They have certainly been both creative and intriguing on the few albums I have heard and this new one is no exception.
As hinted at the album contains six songs and runs over an hour so you hardly need to be any mathematician to realise the average song length is around the ten minute mark giving one hell of a lot of time for one hell of a lot of different things to happen within its epic arrangements. Continuing their ever blasphemous assault on ‘Jesus Nazarenus, Servus Mei’ we are eased in with harmonic straight up Swede riffs and a strange background gurgling before witnessing the arrival of new female vocalist Ruby Roque of Witchbreed. Her predecessor Jonna Enckell did little wrong in my mind but it is instantly evident Ruby has a belting voice and can really hit the roof when she goes for it and this alongside Jorgen’s growls really hits the mark. Style wise let’s mix it up as well and inject a bit of drum and bass along with the already death and industrial tinged feel we have so far encountered. This is definitely schizophrenic stuff but it gels together very well and keeps the listener on their toes without bamboozling them.
If one wanted to be hypercritical this album could easily be cut into 12 songs with the same sort of running time but The Project Hate MCMXCIX, as mentioned, don’t want to take the easy route. Due to this I think they have been overlooked by many and are highly underrated as they need your attention span and are no easy throwaway consumable product. Stick with them and you will be highly rewarded. I have now been led into ‘They Shall All Be Witnesses’ and am in an atmospheric section of orchestral moodiness that suddenly decides to gently take us into a trip-hop beat before Ruby belts back in and the guitars rear up and scythe away. Seriously if I had to tackle this track by track and explain every succinct and stylistic change of arrangement throughout this album I would probably turn this review into an as obtuse exercise as the music it is describing and it would come in at an absolutely ridiculous word count.
It is easier to just sit back and let the gorgeous melody of the piano cantata of ‘A Revelation Of Desecrated Heavens’ wash over me and lose myself in Ruby’s harmonious and sassy vocals and settle down to enjoy an album that still has over half its running time left to further develop and intrigue its already more than complex moods and emotions. If you have never encountered this band before it is a good time to give them a listen and then you should be hooked and want to see just how they have changed with the introduction of these new players. To coin a clichéd Latin phrase either of the group’s originators can comfortably sit back having composed a possible magnum opus, smile and utter those immortal words “veni, vidi, vici.”
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