DARKNESS DESCENDS
DARK ANGEL
(1986)
A1: DARKNESS DESCENDS (5:53); A2: THE BURNING OF SODOM (3:18); A3: HUNGER OF THE UNDEAD (4:18); A4: MERCILESS DEATH (4:07).
B1: DEATH IS CERTAIN (LIFE IS NOT) (4:18); B2: BLACK PROPHECIES (8:33); B3: PERISH IN FLAMES (4:52).
CATEGORY: METAL | DURATION: 35 MINUTES
A key work of the emergent post-Metallica brand of fast, ultra-violent metal music which began to coalesce in 1985 and was already spreading by 1986. As this American music rapidly grew into what is known as “thrash metal” and achieved mass popularity, so its quality diminished in equal proportion, and by 1987 most of it was already self-parodic; by then the more inventive metal bands were already moving in new, subterranean directions, forging secret cults of extreme sonic revolt. Darkness Descends stands at the threshold of this dividing-point of metal music, still underground, just before its point of self-negation as thrash, exultation as death.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT YOUNG (1964-2014)
“ÆTERNUM VORTICE LACRIMARUM SOMNIAT”