It's hard to take a band like Impaled Nazerene seriously.  One look at their stage names, the track list, and the album cover for All That You Fear says that these guys are either off their rockers or slyly perpetuating the 'satan r00lz! 666!' joke that has stereotyped black metal for years.  Though they've been around burning churches and bashing Christians since 1993, this release is the first time I've heard the music of Impaled Nazerene, and probably will be the last... still, things aren't quite as bad as they sound.

The music on All That You Fear is as brazenly over the top as the band's image suggests.  Nearly all of the thirteen tracks are blazingly fast metal bolstered by sandpaper screams from... er... Sluti666.  Yeah.  They range in style from straight up black metal to speedy punk-thrash and sometimes even finn-folk-metal, but the band doesn't often pause to take a breath.  Extreme speed, extreme intensity, and extreme extremity are all present and extremely accounted for.

Unfortunately, this all becomes extremely boring and induces extreme headaches as the album drags on to the end of its forty two minute running time.  There is not enough variance in terms of structure or melodic content to justify including so many similar songs.  Perhaps thirty minutes worth of pretty good music could be culled from All That You Fear and turned into a concise and far more tolerable audio beatdown.  As it is, though, I found myself tuning out the powerchord assault after a while in favor of daydreaming about listening to better albums.

Impaled Nazerene is capable of writing tunefully excoriating metal... in short bursts.  If they trimmed the fat from the album and ditched the clichéd image they project, I'd recommend their music to fans of extreme black metal and speed thrash.  Since they haven't done either, I won't urge anyone to spend money on All That You Fear, for fear that it would encourage them to make even more.
 

Track List:
01.) Kohta Ei Naura Enaa Jeesuskaan
02.) Armageddon Death Squad
03.) The Endless War
04.) The Maggot Crusher
05.) Curse Of The Dead Medusa
06.) Suffer In Silence
07.) Halo Of Flies
08.) Recreate Thru Hate
09.) Goat Seeds Of Doom
10.) Even More Pain
11.) Tribulation Hell
12.) Urgent Need To Kill
13.) All That You Fear

Impaled Nazarene is:
Arc v 666 - bass
Tuomio - lead guitar
Onraj 9mm - guitar
Repe Misanthrope - drums
Sluti666 - vocals

Impaled Nazarene Official Site:
http://www.impnaz.com/

Osmose Productions:
http://www.osmoseproductions.com/

The End Records (US):
http://www.theendrecords.com/

04/15/04