THE ELECTRIC BIBLE | CHAPTER 286

In the 1980s new forms of outsider music were necessary to recapture the visceral assaults and provocations formerly conveyed by rock and roll in its prime. Recorded in March 1984, the music on Swiss band Hellhammer’s Apocalyptic Raids was a raw blueprint for new extreme underground metal, driven by a simple but morbidly hot-wired guitar attack. The nihilistic 9-minute track “Triumph Of Death” – possibly inspired by Breugel’s 16th-century painting of mankind tortured, butchered and exterminated by hordes of skeletal reapers – is notable as perhaps the earliest prototype of “doom metal” (a term frequently misapplied to heavy rock bands and goth nonsense alike). This version of Apocalyptic Raids includes two tracks recorded during the same 1984 sessions, and originally released on the compilation album Death Metal. Hellhammer soon morphed into an even more legendary unit, Celtic Frost, and before the end of the year had recorded their first incendiary electric manifesto, Morbid Tales.