Samstag, 10. März 2018

pestilence - spheres

the final chapter in the early pestilence album series is the band's fourth full length, going by the name "spheres". the album was released in 1993 and after the predecessor "testimony of the ancients" was pretty successful, the band set out to release their most ambitious album to that point. the guys ventured into more experimental and progressive spheres (no pun intended) here and it really feels like the next logical step in pestilence's development.
somehow the album wasn't received very fondly by the metal world back then. cannot see why actually because other experimental death metal records like stuff by death or atheist was successful at the time. whatever it was, the band was not stable enough to stand the commercial flop that was "speheres" and split up shortly afterwards. nowadays original copies of that record are pretty collectible and sell for quite a penny - the irony of time.
like with all the pestilence re-issues before, hammerheart did a splendid job here. again, the listener gets the original artwork of the roadrunner cover sleeve with the pestilence lettering and song titles in gold foil print. furthermore the label threw in a poster of the unused extended art of dan seagrave. the vinyl comes on nice clear with red splatter out of 300 copies. i really enjoyed those pestilence re-issues. another early nineties death metal catalogue for my collection. satisfied. hammerheart records. 2017.