Paramaecium
Melbourne, Victoria14 reviews across 6 releases
Paramaecium was an Australian Christian death/doom metal band formed in Melbourne in the early 1990s. Its first independent tape, Silent Carnage, used growled vocals, bass-heavy production, studio effects and scripture references set against death-metal imagery. The 1993 independent album Exhumed of the Earth expanded the format into long, slow-moving compositions, with operatic soprano, flute and violin enlarging the riffs. Its 17-minute opening piece begins a biblical narrative that continues through Christ's birth, execution and resurrection. Andrew Tompkins supplied the bass and extremely low vocals. By Echoes From The Ground in 2004, the band had moved toward depressive doom, adding clean singing and a soprano to its grunts while keeping the slow tempos and heavy guitar work.
Jayson Sherlock left after the mid-1990s period, and Paramaecium rebuilt around Tompkins for A Time to Mourn in 1999, with Mark Orr on drums and Ian Arkley on guitar. Arkley's presence brought faster classic-metal passages to an otherwise sustained doom setting, while the songs were recorded as a near-continuous sequence. Sherlock did not remain absent permanently. In 2005, Tompkins began working again with Jason De Ron; Sherlock returned the following year, and the reassembled trio played concerts in Melbourne and Sydney before appearing at NordicFest in Oslo in November 2006. Paramaecium ended there and continued under the name InExordium. After InExordium broke up, Sherlock and Sheldon D'Costa formed Revulsed in 2010.
6 releases reviewed
Silent Carnage
Exhumed of the Earth
A Time to Mourn
Echoes From The Ground