Sunday, 20 January 2013

Heksed - Plague Embrace Tape


This band and this release will be familiar to you, if you purchased the 7" from Thirty Days Of Night Records in early 2012. Well it's been repressed by the awesome Church of Fuck on tape for the first time! 2013 sees Church of Fuck going through what's been dubbed as it's "Year of Strength". Building on the momentum it gained in 2012, it's going to be releasing more records and stepping up it's quality. This tape is it's first of four tape pressings this year, which will also be it's only four.

Compared to last years vinyl pressing, the tape version is furnished with two extra tracks. The tape itself only dropped through my letter box on Friday and boy is it good. The packaging is exactly as I've come to expect from CoF. Great full colour inserts with the song listed inside and a printed, double sided tape featuring the band logo and other motifs. With this is mind, I'm gonna do something that's a bit of a novelty to some; I'm gonna listen to the tape on my tape player.

Tracklist:-

1. Damned and Dead.
2. Waylands Knot
3. Suffer/Fear
4. Blodets Forbannelse
5 Det Brennende Lys
6. Heilbringer: The Prophet pt. 2

I'm listening to the tape on an old, dodgy Japanese tape/CD player my sister used to own. This one sided tape kicks off with Damned and Dead. The distortion from the tape player gives it a real authentic sound.
The metallic riffs thrown forth and the blood curdling screams sound immense. It's a completely different sound to the vinyl record too. Its sounds bigger somehow, but that's probably because I have a cheap turntable too. Next up is the quickfire Waylands Knot. Again it's angular in delivery and fast a hell, highlighting a chaotic energy that Heksed have harnessed to their advantage as when they throw in a screaming solo mid-way through, you lose your head!

Suffer/Fear is the third song that just stretches passed the minute mark. it's the third song off the original 7" and this time shows off some of Heksed's groove sensibilities alongside their off-kilter punk. Blodets Forbannelse was the sole b-side from the original 7" and shows a very different side to Heksed's sound. It's more in keeping I think with the sounds of Heksed's Norwegian homelands. The bass rumbles here and the song is more mid-paced. It's actually really heavy too, but features some great melody which helps it to sound really endearing too. Thanks to the piano there's an ambience not previously heard.

Det Brennende Lys is the first of two newly recorded songs to appear on this tape. It takes them back to their more chaotic sound. It's simply just thrashing crazed hardcore, with plenty of sludge sensibilities and brilliantly placed melody. Some would call it harrowing, I call it beautiful. Second new song and tape closer Heilbringer: The Prophet pt.2 features one of the best, screeching solos I've heard in ages. Heksed sound is unlike anything else and while some people have compared it to that of Holy Terror-hardcore, it's got it's own place in heavy music.

This tape was limited to 100 copies and is now sold out, so the only place you can get this is directly from Heksed themselves.

You can stream the first four tracks off the tape at Church Of Fucks bandcamp page below:-

Keep an on Church of Fuck at http://www.facebook.com/churchoffck. They've only just begun this year and will have more great releases coming later.

Pester Heksed at http://www.facebook.com/HEKSED, to see if they have copies of this tape left and to hear about future records they have in the work

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