TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD “Chalice of Disease”

By Dr. Abner Mality

This TRANCE is brimming with the stench of the crypts of the long dead. It’s a one-man Brazillian project specializing in the dismal, primitive drone of the most unholy depths of the metal underground. Names like BEHERIT, ARCHGOAT and VON can be used as a comparison. Whoever the anonymous black priest behind TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD is, he doesn’t really care about musicianship, originality or moving product...he’s all about creating the rotten atmosphere of ancient tombs in musical form.

“Chalice of Disease” eschews all pretense of clean production or virtuosity. It operates on such a homely, dismal level that it becomes really creepy and hypnotic. Even the church organ horror movie intro “The Old Abbey” is genuinely gruesome...you expect to see the Blind Dead rising to this dirge. Then the real assault begins with the super primitive and repetitive death drone metal of “Grave Sacrament”. This is right out of the early BEHERIT playbook...the drums and bass sound muffled in fog, the incomprehensible vocals are a mix of roar and whisper, the guitars become low-tuned slabs of necromantic sound. This is the pattern for all the tracks here and most of them sound a lot alike. But the feeling is so authentically black and creepy that you are sucked into this grisly world.

Extra points go to “Overture of Uncreation”, where the doomy side of the music is emphasized to great effect, and also the title track, where the chants of evil monks are woven into the diabolical hymn. There are a lot of half-assed attempts at the aura of BEHERIT and ARCHGOAT...TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD does well enough to join that pantheon here.

IRON BONEHEAD RECORDS

TRANCE OF THE UNDEAD