Various Artists

Item: A Tribute to Living Sacrifice
Author: Grindboy

A Tribute to Living Sacrifice

(2001)

Reviewed by Grindboy

Discogs YouTube

Label Clenchedfist RecordsDead Zine2001

black metal death metal metalcore

When is a tribute not a tribute? How about when the tribute upstages the originals? Of course I've been a Living Sacrifice listener since the beginning, but this is right up there with Inhabit, my favorite of their albums (partly because half of Inhabit shows up on here, I guess).

First the pleasant surprises. Wow, I agree with D, Mistral's "Threatened" is amazing, FAR surpassing the original (which was already my favorite for Reborn era). I'm talking about harpsichord key effects, black/death vox, and incredible layers of sound. They take some pretty serious liberties at times, and still have plenty of the signature punchy aggression on the big riff. Excellent. Crutch happened to pick my all-time favorite LS song (Breathing Murder), and I don't know if they can write a song but dang! They tear that track up and leave me fully satisfied. Bonus points, even, for great lead guitar work! I'd never heard of Dwell Beneath either, but their rendition of "Unseen" is intense and outstanding.

Songs that gave me exactly what I expected and wanted include Kekal's "Mind Distant", Mindrage's "Haven of Blasphemy" (Jason Truby adds some lead guitar -- very cool!), Clemency's "In the Shadow" (BRUTAL!), Crimson Thorn's "Anorexia Spiritual", Mordecai's "Not Beneath", and Soterios's "Distorted". Basically, all these could go in the pleasant surprise category if I didn't already know the bands rocked, great tracks all! One disappointment was Soul Embraced doing "Truth Solution", partly because I just never really liked the song, and partly because it would be a kick to hear them grind out something from the death metal days. They do a good job and all, I'm just not really into that particular. A couple of the other bands I also wasn't into, and it's unfortunate that LS's own "Desolate", which sounds like it's right off of Nonexistent (which is my personal least fav LS disc) doesn't quite stand up to the tribute acts, but fans of that era will I'm sure appreciate it's inclusion.

Anyway, if you've been keeping count you've noticed that most of the songs done are from the Nonexistent/Inhabit death metal years, and most of the bands are of the death/black persuasion. If you're thinking that fans of only Reborn and The Hammering Process aren't going to find much to dig into here, you're right, but I'm guessing not too many of those people are reading Dead anyway, so if you like Living Sacrifice and you like death metal GET THIS CD!!!

9/10