ASSACRE - Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
from Yorek.com (Israel)
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Assacre's new CD has two things that the pure metalgeist has problems to cope with: homosexuality and humor (and I'm not talking about jokes about homosexuality).
Fortunately, nowadays, the pure metalgeist exist only in the Manowarsphere and in online forums of angry self-righteous 15 year old teenagers who call for a reformation and for the return to the real spirit of metal while using the term that turned into a mantra that ignores any debate in contemporary cultural studies: TRUE.
Far away from of these online forums, metal became an exciting platform for expressing ideas and identities without to be forced to use mainstream pop music. You can find Christian metal, Jewish metal, pagan metal, and Amazonian Christian-Jewish-pagan-metal and of also homosexual metal.
Websites such as Queer Metal expropriate the metal from its "holy and pure" essence and turn it into exciting expression of homosexuals who dislike whimpish music.
Assacre is the band of one man, Ben Aqua, from Austin Texas. I don't think that this is the most open-minded city, but Ben doesn't give a fuck about it and he spits metal like not many other straight men can. Like other reviews stated, Ben colors the rainbow in black with bloody pentagrams.
He does everything on his own. He programs the drums, plays the guitar and sings. He goes onstage wearing weird colorful cloths with a Godzilla mask hiding his face. With this custom on he starts to bomb the crowd with the metal blitzkrieg. Sometimes his music reminds me of epic metal like Bal-Sagoth and sometimes of technical metal like those bands from Florida.
In some parts his music sounds like a melodic Swedish death metal, broken yet complex, and sometimes he sounds like one of those ridiculous symphonic metal bands. But I don't think its too ridiculous because Ben doesn't takes himself too seriously, and yet, Assacre is not a joke band, it's a performance, it's a show that uses metal music in order to provide a colorful, intelligent and emotional experience.
Assacre is not a transformation of a drag show into a metal band, and it's not your ordinary pastiche. Ben takes his music very seriously. The melody is structured and the song titles are pointy and sharp, the guitars sound great and the drum programming sounds a lot better than many other Cubase bands. More than this, Ben added many other elements to spice up the album: he added samples, white noise and power electronics noises and other elements that turn the album into one powerful piece.
I actually don't think that fans of pure and holy heavy metal will enjoy this album. There isn't enough testosterone like in those bands from Century Media or Earache, moreover, the song titles are funny (Gayer than God, Satyriasis De Minimis funny song titles are a metal blasphemy!), the design is colorful and the atmosphere screams: fun fun fun. But this album will definitely fit the taste of punk-hardcore fans that also enjoy a good intelligent metal.
I don't want to spill the blood of all the metal fans and to declare that they cannot enjoy this album, but since the humor in metal usually sums up in Anal Cunt's "X is gay" type jokes, I have hard time to believe that it is possible. This album is indeed more colorful than your usual 'agonizing-face' metal, but it's still very different from a drag show at the local gay-bar. I want to make clear the fact that this album cannot be reduced only to 'queer metal', it's a lot more than this and Ben Aqua brings his own idiosyncratic charm and talent to the music. This is an excellent album, and hey, we didn't say a word about Rob Halford.
ASSACRE - Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
from Pom Kiki Crew Records
imagine the tightest metal possible. Imagine 19 guitarists burning in the undying flame vs. 4 power octopuss drummerz with 32 bass drums that are all a mile long. and more splash symbols than the sun vs. the deth power prism. If bart simpson were alive this would be the soundtrack to his lifestyle. Ultimate homocore.
ASSACRE - Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
from Music
Extreme, Issue 39
Some violent sounds and a distorted American anthem open this album from this project coming from the mind of the artist Ben Aqua that does a very experimental recording here with many sounds that go from death metal to total improvisation. In this sound I have to remark the distorted guitar, the guttural vocals in many parts and the programmed drums that deliver many fast and many technical parts. There are many changes and a lot of experimentation here within a very heavy context. The tune “Satyriasis De Minimis", for example, is heavier than hell and has multiple ideas that surprise constantly. There is also experimentation with samples and industrial sounds. There is a lot of precision in the interaction between guitars and programmed drums which is very important to achieve a powerful result. There are influences of bands from different styles, for example of Merszbow in the noisiest parts, besides other extreme metal bands. An extremely experimental disk with innovative ideas.
ASSACRE - Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
from Punk Planet, Issue 73
"Gay" gets thrown around the metal world pretty casually as a general insult or as a catch-all for all that is not metal. Ben Aqua, AKA Assacre, throws a wrench into that by being an openly gay artist working with metal aesthetics. A one-man band, Assacre melds cartoon-ish fantasy-thrash and primitive drum machine black metal with goofy sound collages. Funny once, but I'm not sure how repeated listens might hold up. (AB)
ASSACRE - Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For
from The Austin Chronicle
Assacre is but one man, but he wails like a metal symphony: thrashing guitar riffs interspersed with teeth-chattering beats and disturbing glimpses of humanity. Prog metal meets performance art. This full-length debut gnashes windmill hair with gay porn without being overly ironic. The title track, a drugged-out "Star-Spangled Banner," opens Fantastic Illusions, which then whips through testosterone-ridden splays of ecstasy (the immortal "Gayer Than God") and glorious jazzy sci-fi dork-outs ("Kalos K'Agathos Gopgos"). "All homosexuals are not passive," warns a particularly jarring sample of 1961 juvenile anti-gay film Boys Beware. Assacre's combination of classic metal and samples from evangelist sermons, vintage TV shows, and sound effects brings metal out of the bonehead genre into a thinking-man's game. More stomp, less bang. But it isn't as simple as that. The experimental Atari noise of "Thy Crystal Odelisk Shall Assend Into Storm Clouds of Mechanical Mystery" (wow) becomes the slurring trip of closer "The Ultimate Dalme of Human Life": a slow-burning acoustic credit-roller. Fantastic Illusions is a page-turner, a mark of utter worth from a man, a dinosaur mask, and a drum machine. -Darcie Stevens
ASSACRE - I Have Fifteen Legs
from Shit Is Fly!
You know, it isn’t very often that a chord progression will make me vomit all over myself and go into a paroxysm of dementia. I mean, it happens with the occasional guitar solo and in some rare exceptions with a melodica, but aside from that it is an extremely hard reaction to invoke. Which makes Assacre all the more impressive in my book. However, if I were to describe Assacre (pronounced like massacre without the “m”) as a guy wearing a strange dinosaur mask pumping out thrash metal, I would not only be doing a great disservice to Assacre, but also a great disservice to you. Assacre is more than the sum of it’s own reality. Its is also that feeling you get when you jump down a flight of stairs at night, or when you wrestle your friend (the fat sweaty one), or when you punch your personal valet in the face so hard that his teeth lacerate your knuckles. It could also be explained as an effervescent sphere of energy floating above the tombs of eighty-one pharaohs, all arranged in the shape of a beautiful giant bird flapping it’s enormous wings. // I found out about Assacre through my homies Big Money Crew, who played on the same bill earlier today at the Rap vs. Metal BBQ. I don’t know what it is about Assacre that so perfectly seizes the zeitgeist of the 21st century so far, but suffice it to say: its very endearing. Assacre will be destroying the KVRX benefit show which will be going down on Nov. 17 at Flamingo Cantina. Mark it on your calendar, I’ll have more info about it later. In the meantime, go to the Assacre website to purchase the album “Fantastic Illusions Worth Dying For”. I have to go… I hear a melodica. - renan
ASSACRE - Impossibly Silent - Demo EP CD-R
from Agitprop Records
From the Assacre web site: "Assacre dwells amongst Austin, TX, and creates symphonies of blasphemy on a primarily subjective and temporary level." Good description, I'd say. Oh, and please let it be known that Assacre is pronounced like massacre minus the M, and NOT the way that Angela had been pronouncing it for months. I guess now would be a good time to mention that the band also describes this Demo E.P. as "6 tracks of thrash/noise/deviant experiment & ultimate execution." Quite frankly, I call it the soundtrack to my nightmares. Twisted in all the right ways, and Ben is truly on to something here. Get it and scare your mom!
if you know of other reviews please tell haha@assacre.com
<< back to PRESS/QUOTES
??? - NEWS - SHOWS - MUSIC - MULTI-MEDIA
PRODUCTS - PRESS/QUOTES - EXTRAS
contact haha@assacre.com
