The Heretic - Gospel Songs in E minor - Symphonic Black/Death from Spain

	The Heretic Gospel Songs in E Minor
We could say The Heretic was born in 1997, but we’d not be totally right. It was up and running 1995 when - under the name of Execror - the band started playing thrash/death metal as well as covers of their favourite bands. Unfortunately, as there isn't any release from the Execror days, we should consider them as kind of the seed of what would come shortly after. Soon the need of change turned up once the band felt that they had finished their stabilizing process. It was without any doubt the first step into a new era for the band. After some line-up changes in which Nexusseis (Javier Fernández, keyboards) and Alasthor (Javier Moya, bass) joined the band, Execror started becoming The Heretic. The new keyboards work provided The Heretic with a melodic symphonic touch that the band has not had before, maybe approaching it in part to the melodic black metal scene of those years. And so it was that the band published its first MCD in 1997, which was something like the official welcome of The Heretic to this world. It was called “The Book of Fate” (Black Dragon Records, Autumn, 1997), featuring 4 songs of melodic black/death metal, in the vein of Arcturus, In the woods, Emperor…according to the reviews that started to appear here and there in the European underground metal press.	After some offers and attempts with a few record labels that is not worth talking about, the band contacted Xtreem Music by chance (who were interested in the band some years ago as Repulse Rec.), and they still seemed to be interested in them. The deal was great for the band, ‘cause more than just promotion and distribution for “Chemistry for the soul” (it was just what they were looking for), they offered a record deal for 3 new future albums. At this point, with more support from their new label, The Heretic has just released their 3rd. album to date. It’s called “Gospel Songs in E Minor” and for sure it’ll be the definitive blow for the band to take its place inside the European extreme metal scene. The album retakes the load of epic and majesty contained in “Fallen from Heaven”, maybe left aside in “Chemistry…”, that was a more experimental and weird album - and yet another success for the band, once that Xtreem Music re-issued and promoted it suitably. Now, band’s 3rd episode is wide open. Counting on a great production and featuring 9 killing tracks, “Gospel Songs…” is without any doubt The Heretic’s best album in their 10 years of career. The fourth release from Heretic ”Gospel songs in E minor” is a 44 minutes travel into the universe of Heretic. Heretic is a death metal band founded in Spain in 1996 under the name Execror. Since then the band have experienced the almost mandatory changes in line-up and labels who didn’t have what it takes to promote a band properly. But in spite of their sometimes bad luck Heretic has managed to stay afloat. And they deserve all the best, since they have a great potential in the death/black genre. I am impressed with the vocal work of Rhülk, who has been the front man since the band was founded. “Gospel……..” contains of 9 songs with a total playing time of approx. 45 minutes.
We can point out that the band were offered a record deal in those days from Repulse Records (Xtreem Music Records nowadays), but they denied it as they didn’t consider themselves responsible enough to face up to such a compromise. There were days in which the band were focused only in making some gigs and have the most fun they could. Despite this, in the next breath “The Book of Fate” became one of the most acclaimed Spanish black metal releases ever, opening the gates of the underground scene to the band. The next year and after some line-up changes in which Nexusseis took over the bass as Alasthor quit the band, and left the keyboards to Aphengouza ( Emilio Abengoza the last member to join the band), alongside Rhülk (Raul Gómez).- voice, Chrisphoval (Cristobal Martinez) - Drums, Carlo IV (Juan Carlos Pérez).- guitars and Lux (Luis Gil.) - guitars - the band entered the studio to record their first full-length album. In these days there seemed to be a deep change of mind inside the band that entailed not only line-up changes, but also a new will, goals and – subsequently - challenges. “Fallen From Heaven” was released by Iberian Moon Rec. in late 1999 (formerly Black Dragon Rec.). Very soon the album was a success for the band and the major part of the Spanish underground metal press agreed that it was the best melodic black/metal release of 2000 year. “Fallen…” was chosen to be “Spanish Album of the Year”, as well as The Heretic was chosen as “Novel Band of the Year”, according to HELL AWAITS reader’s poll, 9.75/10 in REPULSE ‘zine, 9/10 in VAMPIRIA, 10/10 in Blasphemous ‘zine... Things seemed to start working for the band. But after these hopeful days Iberian Moon unfortunately went bankrupt, and left the band with neither a record deal nor support at all, just after the 2nd album of the band was released in 2002. In those days Lux quit the band and Phaernan (form the Spanish brutal death metal act UNCREATION) joined The Heretic. Therefore the band’s new album “Chemistry for the soul” (Iberian Moon Rec. 2002), didn’t get the support it deserved as it was left without promotion of any kind. Just hard times for the band.	There is not a lot of variety in the songs and their atmosphere. But you don’t always have to make an album with very different songs to succeed. The overall atmosphere is straightforward and very brutal. In the vein of Emperor and Death, Heretic is pounding away with songs that display the complex, epic and progressive style that has brought Heretic to a high level of awareness by a steadily growing horde of fans. I don’t know why, but I think this album sounds the best, if the volume knob is turned to max. You just have to give all your friendly neighbours a chance to know this 5-piece metal squad from Albacete. Listening to songs like “The Claim of Integrity” is like having a long string of barbwire yanked through your skull as you sit on a bed of nails. It may hurt a lot and make you bleed all over the place. Fuck it, I say – you feel oh so good afterwards. And then you walk over to the stereo and press the PLAY button once more because you got to go through this initiator of gorish mayhem and infernal torment once again. The album ends with the majestic finale “The Day of The Lord” – a very atmospheric and well arranged tune. Especially the last 3^rd of the song where the tempo is turned down to almost doom metal level. It’s like listening to Dimmu Borgir without the keys and synths, if you can imagine that? The tracklist is as follows: 01. Sunday Morning, The 13th 02. Chimera (mp3) 03. Did I Say Why I Hate You? 04. Today 05. We've Turned Into Saints 06. Ashamed 07. The Claim Of Integrity 08. Monster 09. The Day Of The Lord More info on the band at http://www.thehereticband.com/ or http://www.xtreemmusic.com/

Reviewed by www.metal-coven.dk 1999-2006