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intothewellsabyss
Nov 14, 20223 min read

Bathory - Requiem (1994)

FROM THE CRYPTS - CELEBRATING PAST ALBUM RELEASES in the HISTORY of HARD ROCK & HEAVY METAL…


On November 14, 1994, Bathory released their seventh full-length studio album Requiem via Black Mark Productions.



(Pictured is the edition featuring red font. The edition of Requiem with the same cover utilizing black font is pictured below.)


Requiem eschews the Viking Metal style of Bathory's three previous releases for a Thrash Metal style that recalls many of the bands that initially influenced Bathory. The album was recorded by Rex Gisslén at Montezuma Studio, Stockholm, Sweden in June 1994, and was produced by Quorthon. The albums cover was also designed by Quorthon.



Background:

After taking a short break to work on solo material, Bathory founder Quorthon returned with Requiem. As already mentioned, Requiem marked a change in Bathory’s style once more, diverting from the signature Black and Viking Metal styles of early on for a more retro-Thrash sound in the vein of 1980s Bay Area Thrash. Dealing with varying stories of death, it was one of Quorthon's favorite albums that was released under the Bathory moniker.



Note:

On the original release, the track-list was incorrectly listed in alphabetical order in the booklet and on the back cover of the album, but the correct track order is printed on the face of the CD.



Critical Reception:

In an edition of Decibel Magazine’s Justify Your Shitty Taste, Neill Jameson states;

“Is this record as good as the first three? No. But it doesn’t have to be. This tradition of holding up a certain batch of records from artists and expecting everything to be an instant classic is fucking delusional. But this record has been overlooked and under-appreciated for too long. Unlike Octagon, or some of the later records, this isn’t just one for those obsessive collectors who need to own everything but listen to two of them. And considering how many people are buying bootleg Bathory merch from parasites using other people’s work to try to convince the world they themselves matter, you’d think that more people would try to listen to this record with fresh ears.”

In conclusion, Jameson wrote;

Requiem remaining somewhat buried by time and dust is a perfect example of the style-over-substance crowd, the ones who weren’t supposed to “entry.”

In his review for AllMusic, Eduardo Rivadavia stated;

“Cryptic though its title and cover image (boasting human skulls and bones strewn across the landscape) may seem, not everything about Bathory's Requiem spells an end to all things. Instead, the album (Bathory's seventh) merely signaled a back-to-basics resurrection of the legendary black metal group's primitive, early-days simplicity, rather than offering yet another chapter in their Wagnerian, long-evolving Viking metal phase of the surrounding years. In retrospect, the album was clearly the first sign of Quorthon hitting a creative wall, with subsequent clues arriving in the form of his eclectic, but obviously searching solo releases of the same period, as well as Bathory's own, often inconsistent albums. In the case of Requiem, any trace of the lengthy epics, ostentatious arrangements, chorused vocals, and ambient keyboards that had dominated other albums was obliterated by the single-minded velocity and death metal mania with which tracks like Crostitution, Distinguish to Kill, and War Machine pierce the listener's skull. And you can forget about any clean singing, something which as of late had become the norm as well, but which was summarily slaughtered here by the gurgling convulsions of Quorthon's shredded larynx. Ironically, even though Requiem did benefit from the improved audio quality present on the band's later triumphs, on this occasion the final results were surprisingly inferior to the rough-hewn gems of their past. Requiem fell somewhere between the two extremes, thereby failing to fulfill the expectations of most of Bathory's fan contingent.”

Note: The reviews shared here are for historical reference. The views and opinions expressed within are not always supported (in full or in part) by Into the Wells. — E.N. Wells



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