Day Fifty-Four: Decapitated - Winds of Creation

Earache/Wicked World ■ WICK011LP

Released April 11, 2000

Produced by Piotr Wiwczarek (aka "Peter (VADER)")

Side One:	Side Two:
Winds of Creation Blessed The First Damned Way to Salvation	The Eye of Horus Human's Dust Nine Steps Danse Macabre Mandatory Suicide

In discussing metal, I typically refer clearly--at some point, anyway--to my first ever "real" metal band, which was Morbid Angel.¹ Indeed, it was their second album, Blessed Are the Sick that really "clicked" with me finally, once I was able to get used to David Vincent's vocals (and thus, forever after, the "cookie monster" growling that typifies death metal at large). I actually ordered the album direct from their label, Earache, at the time, back when I was still in high school. Coupled with it were a handful of stickers for other bands, like December Wolves and, well, Decapitated. Because I still knew so little about metal, I took those two names as inspiration for further exploration--and, hey, I was an eMusic Unlimited member at the time (when there still was such a thing), which meant their partnership with Earache opened the door for me to try just about anything I felt like that they recommended.

I snagged Winds of Creation readily back then, and found myself pleased (December Wolves did not go over so well, but that's largely because they were not and are not strictly death metal, which is what I was looking for at that time--in fact, they were triggered-drum-heavy black metal, which was still a very foreign thing to me). I picked up 2002's Nihility as well, eventually even ordering it on the massive 220g vinyl that I also ordered Slaughter of the Soul on, at the same time. Winds of Creation ended up on one of my "I want to blast this metal" CDs (most of them paired with other albums) I burnt in those days, but Nihility eventually took over for me, largely on the back of the album's single "Spheres of Madness"--which, let me emphasize, has an absolutely killer main riff. Of course, if you wander around and compare ratings (such as those at the stupendously comprehensive Encyclopædia Metallum²) you will find Winds consistently receives the highest ratings out of all of their albums (and note that The Negation slips significantly after Nihility, and that the last two albums get passable scores at best).

Truth be told, Winds of Creation is a superior album overall. I still have a soft spot for Nihility and will often claim it as favoured personally, but I have to admit that the production, in particular, gives Winds the edge (Nihility is comparatively "dry" in production--intensely so, in fact). It was with this in mind--as well as a personal desire for ownership--that I ended up snagging Winds of Creation only a few weeks back. I've been wanting to give the album more spins, simply because it doesn't have a song that completely breaks up the feel like "Spheres of Madness", so there's not as distinct a hook. Throw in the fact that it was actually issued on vinyl (this happened in 2010) and on coloured vinyl at that, and it was a given.

While I've never noticed as strong a hook as the riff in "Spheres of Madness", the opening of Winds of Creation, the title track, is a fantastic opener which doesn't rely on the studio-based radio fuzz that opens Nihility. Witold "Vitek" Kiełtyka's drums are absurdly precise, and create a distinct and rigid backing for his older brother Wacław "Vogg" Kiełtyka's guitar riffs, before he unleashes his frighteningly rapid double-kick, which eventually launches the album into the stratosphere and makes room for the lean, muscular riffs of Vogg to streak up the sides of the song. Wojciech "Sauron" Wąsowicz has a wonderful growl: his vocal rhythms are strange and hard to follow, and masked somewhat by his rather distinct Polish accent (when you can match his words to the written lyrics, you can hear it easily, and it became more clear in Nihility where his voice was more clear in general). The song is pummeling and serves as a fantastic introduction to the band, who had previously recorded only demos, some of which were released on the compilation Polish Assault previously, but otherwise unreleased publicly. The finale of the song returns it all to the breakneck pacing it saw only briefly earlier, and allows Marcin "Martin" Rygiel's bass to appear for one of the only times it is audible on the record (an unfortunately common truth particular to extreme metal subgenres), that gives the song some very clear punctuation.

"Blessed" almost eases into place after the title track, with the actual playing speed undiminished, but the feel of the tempo seeming to connote a lesser emphasis on it--which does actually make Vogg's riffs all the more blinding for their solitary choice of speed. Vitek and his brother blurr into a chaotic whirlwind as the first verse is introduced, Sauron's voice blurring into the low end of the song fantastically. Vogg is given the briefest of spotlights, alone in the left channel, to which Vitek responds with deep thudding finality. After a low-end focus in the second verse portion, Vogg's riffs seem to flash alongside as if they are the flames licking the sides of a rumbling engine--be they painted or real. There's a wonderful breakdown of riffs that seem to stretch instead of chugging independently, buoyed by Martin's matching bassline. Shifting tempos and movements are defined by a variety of riffs and drum beats. The ending speeds the song through a clearly locked snare and then charging riffs. Vogg drops a brilliant solo composed almost entirely of bends, that finally claims to an apex of bends. The way Vitek lays splash, ride, and snare over his rumbling engine of double-kick is something to behold, as if you could see him speeding beyond his bandmates, utterly unaware as they would seemingly need to struggle to ever catch up.

Also given as the name of the compilation of their demo recordings (which also contained a version of the song, as well as numerous others later re-recorded for this album), "The First Damned" washes in like a thickened tide, building from Vogg's isolated guitar to a full-stereo sound from him and Vitek. The main riff comes along and it's a long stretch of tremolo picking that gives that wonderful "appearance" of a single strike being held (almost). The pacing is actually reduced in large part for this one--Vitek does not actually drop to simple blast beats, but his beats are less dominated by double-kick then they have been to this point. The second riff is lovely and bendy, seeming to pose itself as a question in response to Sauron's vocals. The track has the most "normal" solo on the album, in that it is not defined primarily by the "tap" method of playing (wherein the player taps his or her fingers on the strings of the guitar using the picking hand, rather than picking them with plectrum or fingers). It's a delightful solo, which seems to act as a sudden spike in the established riffing, increasing speed and range, even as it, too, seems a bit "slow" as compared to the rest. The leads are also a bit more melodic in the track, though they give way to another isolated, left-channel riff that acts as herald to the forward rush of the song's full return. It's also unusual in its ending, allowing a sustained hold to ring, rather than fading or stopping abruptly.

Somewhat inexplicably, the lyrics to "Way to Salvation" are not printed in my vinyl or CD copy of this album, but that doesn't reflect on the song itself. A nice balance of hand and foot drumming is marked by a scrabbling of riffs from Vogg. His guitar is practically unleashed as Sauron's voice enters the track, seeming to splay and rush in all directions. The lead is one of the best full leads on the album, climbing to higher pitches than Vogg normally favours, and being possibly even double-tracked for a semi-harmonized stereo effect that is exaggerated by the guitar track's absence in one channel prior to this effect. Vitek gets to throw in a fill that shows off his skill without breaking up the song, even as it does bring the song to a slowed tempo as if pulling at the reins--Vitek's drumming is slowed for what might be the only time on the album, as is Vogg's solo, which seems to be throwing in the exertion of a very steep climb as it makes its way along, occasionally stopping at a "plateau" for a seeming aside to listeners, sounding just slightly like the "Egyptian" tones of Nile for a moment, but regaining its own spirit, which has the slight pinches and squeals of Azagthoth-style³ soloing hidden in it. A semi-hypnotic, still slowed ending follows from this and is allowed to simply fade out, which seems only appropriate for the turn it has taken.

"The Eye of Horus" follows a similar path to the title track, with Vitek's drums acting as a very strict skeleton for Vogg's riffs at open, but filling in tendon and sinew as his double-kicks enter the fray. It's one of the thrashiest tracks on the album, Sauron struggling to spit out his words in time. The haltingly descending riffs Vogg lays down after the first verse are absolutely fantastic, and hint at the usage a similar one will see later on in "Nine Steps". There's a peculiar and spiralling, chunky mid-section that ends each of Sauron's following lines, seeming to circle itself to avoid tripping, eventually finding its gait and slinking along on the smooth tremolo we heard in "The First Damned". Vogg's solo is distorted and strange--perhaps even more Azagthoth-y, for its vague dissonance and experimental nature, though as is true of most, it maintains just a bit more melodicism than Trey's usual blasts of "lava". The outro is another fade, but it manages to include some flashes of lead we don't hear a lot of in a single-guitarist band.

"Human's Dust" seems to be designed to prove that the band has been holding weapons in reserve--the song drops out of the sky fully formed and thick with riff and drum, but breaks itself apart to a bare bones snare-based interlude that turns it to a near black-metal blastbeat-styled passage. Never ones to make their time signature changes and tempo shifts obvious or clumsy, the song seems to shift and change them more readily and constantly than the entire rest of the album, allowing for a solo that combines elements of all the previous ones--perhaps an apex in style, if not flavour. It bends, taps, squeals, and slides along into airy blasts of tremolo arm modulated gusts. 

Ah, "Nine Steps". The only rest we're given before it is the pummeling pounding of Vitek on toms and snare, which lead into a similarly isolated riff from Vogg that is dragged into the maelstrom by Vitek's slide in on the ride cymbal. The song takes off, Vogg racing over the top of it with his amalgamated lead and rhythm riffing, a few hints of Slayer-esque riffage that are then buried into a more Decapitated-signature sound. There's a sort of skating riff over an unusual drum beat composed of tight hi-hat rhythmic hissing, which is completely unexpected at this point, yet utterly fitting. But in all of this, the lead is to the best riff on the album: at about two minutes in, the song climbs ever upward and then zooms off, building intense energy that isn't clearly anticipatory, seemingly resolved by the booming of Vitek's drums announces the high end tremolo riffing of Vogg. He lays out a stupendously blurred solo that seems to slow the song down to a chugging riff that repeats to only the hiss of ride before the briefest of pauses, hovering on the brink, then leaping off to zig-zag from channel to channel as it descends. The riff is a sudden change in feel and that brilliant moment before it drops down only serves to make the drop that much more delicious, ending the song on its third repetition, quite abruptly.

As is often the case with metal bands, "Dance Macabre" appears at the end, not unlike "The Flames of the End" appearing at the end of Slaughter of the Soul, though this more closely resembles the booming, ominous synthetic inclusions of black metal bands, such as the earliest moments of Emperor's Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk. It functions best as an outro, of course--it would come off strangely, at best, in the middle of the album. It is a nice vent for the heat the album has built to this point though--moody, spooky, like a cult horror soundtrack (hence the association with "The Flames of the End").

The vinyl includes the previously international-only (don't ask me which international--maybe their home Polish version lacked it, or Earache's home UK, or the U.S. version, or maybe none of them--it's not a genre prone to meticulous record-keeping, to be honest) cover of Slayer's 1988 South of Heaven track "Mandatory Suicide". Our Polish boys speed it up only slightly, and give it the more full crunch of death metal--somewhat "thicker" than the mid-high orientation of late 80s metal production and thrash metal in general. Sauron's voice continues to be an interesting surprise, especially when compared to the already somewhat higher pitches of Tom Araya--nevermind when compared to the booming rumble of our young Polish lad. As "bonus tracks" go with covers--there's not much to say beyond the quality: it's a nimble and appropriate cover, that manages to blur their style in with the original, neither laying an overt kind of mutated claim to it, nor merely servicing it.

Decapitated's biggest claim to fame I have thankfully left out until now: At the time of recording, Sauron was 17 years old, as was Vogg. Martin was 15. And Vogg's little brother? Vitek had just turned 15 himself. As if that wasn't "bad" enough, they recorded and released their first--very professionally performed--demo two years earlier.

This is a ridiculously professional, well-played, well-recorded, and well-written album--it can easily stand next to seasoned professionals, and clobber almost any starters. It doesn't make a big deal out of its technicalities, nor fail to achieve them in the first place. If, indeed, it's not so complicated as it sounds to my unprofessional ears (though that is one thing I've never heard contested about the band, even by the snobs), it's still well done enough that it sure as hell sounds like it. And that's an unbelievable strength, especially in a sub-sub-genre like "technical death metal". And no, I didn't make that up. It's occasionally crossed with (indeed, sometimes synonymous with) "brutal death metal", a designator that generally indicates the unfamiliar should be wary, as much of what I'm still wont to call "wankery" is likely to be present--that is, the masturbatory self-indulgences of proving technical skill. While Decapitated may prove they have exactly that, they don't do so at the expense of songwriting at any moment on the album.

I may have softened to the idea of "brutal" or "technical" death metal in general--or, perhaps, Decapitated helped it to grow on me in the first place. Certainly, it was because of Sauron's constant appearances in Immolation shirts that I eventually picked up that incredibly excellent band that occupies the same genre-space--even rendering my favourite "tech-death" album of all: Close to a World Below. They also helped to refine my taste in death metal, to direct me somewhat toward what I would like later, and away from the sinking notion that, in my limited ability to explore (as well as the handful of recommendations I had to receive then), I was stuck with the "gore-porn" lyrics that once defined death metal (I'm not a Cannibal Corpse fan, though I do love the heck out of Carcass). Despite the name, Decapitated effectively never touched on this--their album titles as well as their song titles seem to make that clear, but I'll state it openly here as well. They're lyrics that reflect--well, misanthropy and nihilism, perhaps most explicitly stated in the title track from their second album: "Nihility (Anti-Human Manifesto)"--there's no sense of elitist dismissal of others, so much as full-on, general misanthropy, and blame laid at the feet of an all-too-deserving human race.

I also can't say enough about Sauron's voice: it defines much of what I want out of a death metal vocalist, as he sounds somewhat inhuman, but not as if it's a strain so much as a shift in gears for him. Some vocalists grate, others are ho-hum, but Sauron's perfect blend--sometimes criticized for this--manages to insinuate itself more completely into the band's music and function perfectly on that level.

I know, as always, my endorsement of a metal album is meaningless to metal fans and worse to those who hate the genre, but this album receives my highest recommendations all the same. The band wandered into entirely different territory that was hinted at with The Negation and fully realized after Sauron was replaced by Adrian "Covan" Kowanek for Organic Hallucinosis, furthered yet by the exit of all but Vogg for 2011's Carnival Is Forever. Of course, the interceding years were distinctly unkind to the band: in 2007, a bus accident left then-vocalist Covan in a coma, and killed the 23-year old Vitek. Sadly, this is now the new face of the band's immediate introductions. Would that we were still just talking about how young they all are.

In any case, if you are willing to look into a full-fledged metal album and its aggression, give this one a spin--if you're open to the idea, there's no way it could disappoint.

¹Interestingly, Vogg auditioned to be the second guitarist for Morbid Angel, after Erik Rutan left to take on Hate Eternal full time. Funny, these "full circle" things.

²If you stop and peruse those reviews: welcome to the online metal community. Never will you find more harsh critics determined to convince others of the quality of their taste, and their superiority to almost any offering. Strict personal rules are applied vindictively, and no leeway is given to...anything. I didn't last long, taste-wise, in such communities. I never do. Still, you will find that, barring the absurdly negative reviews of Nihility, it ends up just below Winds of Creation. Their (adjusted) scores are approximately 86% and 93% respectively, which also lines up with anecdotal experience of opinions. But, seriously, I don't recommend dealing with the self-important nonsense that bleeds into that community endlessly. It's tiresome posturing and pissing contests in almost every internet incarnation. When I saw Decapitated live, however, it was the most polite show I've ever been to, despite them playing along with Suffocation--unlike the more popular forms of aggressive music, everyone was given space and allowed to go about things in their own way. 

³Trey Azagthoth (aka George Emmanuelle III, no I'm not kidding) is the guitarist for Morbid Angel. He refers to his solos as "lava", at least with respect to the compilation of them entitled Love of Lava.