pan-o-ra-ma
Lakes of Sacrifice is one of the best releases that I have gotten my hands on this year. The concept behind the album and music in general make this a cult masterpiece. The whole album has that special touch, altering the senses by the majesty of musicianship, and the atmospheres generated by militaristic percussions give you a sense of an apocalyptic world full of despair and desolation. Vous-Deux and Gard-Enz, with their dense instrumentation and somber elements, end
this album on a high note. There is some similarity to In Slaughter Natives, but Dead Man's Hill creates its own unique touch, mark and identity, which are things I consider very important. There is a remix of the second track titled "Legion Of Coldness" developed by Fractured, which has a more electronic focus. Dead Man's Hill, who hail from Belgium, have received high praise world wide with this release, and in my opinion it deserves to be in your collection. The
pure apocalyptic music with a dark militaristic touch will surely impact you.
reviewer: - edgar kerval
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la defuncion
En el comentario del anterior disco de la banda ya anticipé que su sonido había mejorado y que la línea musical había tomado la dirección de su principal influencia; In Slaughter Natives se ha convertido en referencia única y fundamental para DMH. Volviendo a su anterior trabajo también comenté que su talón de Aquiles era sin duda la producción y hasta ese defecto lo ha corregido con creces, alcanzando el sonido la potencia y la fuerza necesaria para asemejarse a su mentor.
Está claro que los que oigan este trabajo se van a separar en dos grupos bien diferenciados, por un lado los que verán a DMH como una simple copia de ISN, sin inventar nada y aprovechándose de patrones ya utilizados por el monstruo nórdico. Por otro lado estarán los que podrán aparcar ese parecido tan evidente y podrán disfrutar de un trabajo que sin duda alcanza parámetros muy altos de calidad.
Tema tras tema la banda consigue introducirte en un mundo apocalíptico e hipnótico, las percusiones industriales, los coros de voces y un ambiente agobiante se unen para conseguir un resultado sobresaliente. Una de las curiosidades del disco, es que quizás siendo el trabajo mas completo y el de mayor calidad, haya sido editado por un sello prácticamente desconocido, hubiera sido mucho mejor un sello con buena distribución y prestigio para dar una mayor promoción a un disco que se lo merece.
En un álbum muy homogéneo, el último corte rompe totalmente con la línea del trabajo ya que es una remezcla del tema “Legion of Coldness” a cargo de Fractured. Si te gusta In Slaughter Natives o el sonido industrial de corte apocalíptico, este trabajo no te defraudará, sin embargo si eres de esos que pides que cada disco sea un fuente de originalidad, no se te ocurra ni tocarlo.
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heathen harvest e-zine
Dead Man’s Hill is best introduced by the artists brief bibliographical statement on the Dead Man’s Hill website “Dead Man's Hill started in 1998 with the intension of making dark and cold music, especially influenced by The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud, and early In Slaughter Natives, but with a more aggressive feel, by incorporating black/death metal influences. The Lyrics of Dead Man's Hill revolve around Haïtian voodoo cultists (Culte des morts) and the sickness/cancer that mankind is.”
At first glance the concept of a Belgian musician performing music in the vein of In Slaughter Native and The Moon Lay Hidden with black metal influences and Haitian voodoo lyrics may seem a bit eclectic but Dead Man’s Hill has proven that this new generation of industrial musicians is capable of bridging such diverse themes. Taking inspiration from defining acts of the past Dead Man’s Hill has helped to reinvigorate a sense of experimentalism within industrial and especially martial industrial music.
Lakes of Sacrifice is the 5th official album by Dead Man’s Hill released on Bugs Crawling Out Of people of Canada after four previous successful releases on such prominent labels as Slaughter Productions, WOP and Beast Of Prey. Lakes of Sacrifice features collaborations with spoken word artist It-Clings and a remix by Nick Gorman of Fractured.
The musical style will be familiar to Dead’s Man’s Hill fans who have come to enjoy the dense driving martial industrial dirges that have come to define the sound of the band. As on previous albums martial drumming mixes freely with swelling choirs, electric guitars, percussion, keyboards and samples. Unlike The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud the music is not medieval in tone but rather more industrial and apocalyptic. There is an emphasis on anger, despair and hopelessness akin to many of the older CMI bands like Coph Nia and In Slaughter Natives. The inclusion of electric guitar and drums in many songs is not only refreshing it is rather effective at contributing to the driving nature of many tracks. The use of ritualistic percussion is also worth mention. Though it is slight and seldom when Dead Man’s Hill does direct his attention towards ritualistic or tribal percussion scores it seemed as if he was touching upon something worth exploring further. Merging the martial tone of the music with ritualistic elements occurs in some passages but I was left wanting to here more of this mixture.
Though most of the songs follow a deep furrow that leads to ever darkening recesses the artists manages an amazingly narrative passage that holds the listeners attention. Though you never expect the sun to break the dark skies the music projects your imagination and attention are held completely throughout the album by keen use of sound and acoustic structure. The music is epic and diverse changing pace from song to song from dark oppressive soundscapes to engorged martial anthems while ever retaining a menacing industrial edge. Dead Man’s Hill stands alongside the next generation of industrial musicians leading the way into the future alongside acts like Cold Fusion, Rukkanor and the many other newer musicians who seem so talented at introducing new elements into otherwise rigid musical styles.
If you indulge in dark martial soundscapes written for a decaying age you will find solace and sanctuary if not new nightmares in the music of Dead Man’s Hill fifth release Lakes of Sacrifice.
reviewer: malahki thorn, july 2007
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side-line
DMH is a dark ambient project from Belgium, which has already been active for a couple of years now. The new album has an amazing huge potential to conquer a wider audience and helping them in the search of a deal with a good label. The orchestral arrangements are clearly reminding to the living legends of In Slaughter Natives. This is more than a simple reference! “Lakes of sacrifice” is full of bombast and transposed feelings of drama and horror. A few vocal parts and some mysterious female chants only accentuate the state of mysticism this band created with real talent! The last song is a remix made by Fractured, which sounds definitely more electronic minded! This is maybe one of the best kept secrets of the Belgian ambient scene, but it’s now high time to bring this band a bit more into the spotlights! Great music!
(7/8)
reviewer: DP , April 2007
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hefthip e-zine
Starting off with a dark ambient track, punctuated by the oh-so-angry ramblings of It-clings creating an atmosphere of foreboding, as the vocals thrash through the agony of the world, angrily denouncing life, while grasping for some sort of meaning. The music continues from there into a martial neo-folk set up, angry dark ambient drones punctuating the roots of the tracks, while overture-like noises float in, leading to the marching beats and vocal samples floating in and out.
Operatic female vocals add a really nice sub-text to the whole thing, like a little emphasis to the desperate feelings. A sort of overall horror at facing the world. Leading to increasing darkness and despair, life feels as if it's slowly ebbing out of you as you progress further and further into the album.
I feel as if I'm at some medieval ritual, perhaps awaiting the sacrificial burnings. Or I suppose drowning would be more appropriate, but I guess any old killings would be just fine or maybe just sitting around and despairing also wouldn't be so bad place to be hearing this.
Definitely a very intense and frightening album, which I hope is the point, for it would make a terrible light pop hit. Really, I mean I hope the intention wasn't to make a sugary top 40 hit, as this would be a miserable failure. Great listening for a cold, miserable winter's day.
reviewer: Matthew Rich , march 2007
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re:gen
Ring in the winter with bleak Scandinavian hymns that will leave your soul scorched and your stereo frostbitten.
In the tradition of infamous arsonist Burzum and the Cold Meat Industry crew, Dead Man's Hill (composed solely of 26-year-old Belgian, Bart Piette) conjures up neo-classical/industrial nightmares that sound as if they were transmitted from the belly of the beast. The formula is consistent to the point of monotony: towering medieval symphonics, martial meters, and metallic cacophony, awash with ghoulish howls, ritualistic chants, and garbled spoken snippets. DMH dishes up a hefty helping of horror sludge in "Sacrifice Before Harvest Moon," the most successful in a throng of occultist vignettes. The funereal rhythms thump like a chain gang trudging through the snow while supernatural moans splatter on the horizon. Certain segments need tightening in the timing department and the eight minute length will crawl by slowly for some, but Piette's primary talent lies in the craft of mood setting. Every bar of Lakes of Sacrifice is riddled with mortal dread, from the liturgical drones of "Sacrifice of Subscription" to the spectral swarm of "Gard Enz." The largely instrumental material is best suited for background ambiance rather than headphone scrutiny; with some fine-tuning, it could even provide an eerie score for the next Saw installment. It's not enough to set the blog world ablaze, but dystopian doomsters will get their fix. At the very least, this freaky-deaky devil music is sure to spook your squarest neighbors.
-- Sarah Masear
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giag
DEAD MAN'S HILL send back out the surrender-site of the living body junk feeling replicant where turned on the ill-treatment of a chemical anthropoid to the insanity medium of the hyperreal HIV scanners DNA channel of the corpse city era respiration-byte. "lakes of sacrifice" plug-in the paradise apparatus of the human body pill cruel emulator to the abnormal living body of DEAD MAN'S HILL digital vamp cold-blooded disease animals abolition world-codemaniacs that was controlled the murder-gimmick of the soul/gram made of retro-ADAM. DEAD MAN'S HILL accelerate the acidHUMANIX infectious disease archive of the biocapturism nerve cells trash sense of drug fetus to the reptilian HUB modem heart that hung up the nightmare-script of a clone boy virus. The terror fear cytoplasm of DEAD MAN'S HILL gene-dub of the drug fetus of the trash sense to the modem heart of the hybrid corpse mechanism that turned on technojunkies' ill-treatment to non-resettable reptilian HUB. The paradise apparatus of the human body pill cruel emulator DEAD MAN'S HILL corpse feti streaming of the soul/gram made of retro-ADAM to the acidHUMANIX infectious disease archive of the biocapturism nerve cells nightmare-script of a clone boy mass of flesh-module. "lakes of sacrifice" install the brain universe of the hyperreal HIV scanner form murder game of the dogs of tera to the feeling replicant living body junk of DEAD MAN'S HILL digital vamp cold-blooded disease animals. DEAD MAN'S HILL exterminate to the paradise apparatus of the human body pill cruel emulator that compressed the brain universe of the hybrid corpse mechanism gene-dub of a chemical anthropoid acidHUMANIX infectious disease of the soul/gram made of retro-ADAM. "lakes of sacrifice" turn on trash sense of drug fetus reptilian HUB modem heart that hung up to the genomics strategy circuit that was processed the data mutant of DEAD MAN'S HILL abolition world-codemaniacs feeling replicant ill-treatment. The mass of flesh-module of the hyperreal HIV scanner form that tera of dogs DEAD MAN'S HILL were debugged to the DNA channels of the biocapturism nerve cells corpse feti streaming of a clone boy guerrilla.
-- Kenji Siratori, 2006
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ukrainian gothic portal
Рождённый под флагом Бельгии, Dead mans hill уже далеко не новый проект, празднующий в этом году восьмилетие своего существования. Только вот почему то альбомы проекта начали выходить только в прошлом, тоесть 2005-ом году... Ну не в этом суть. За два года выпуска альбомов Dead mans hill был очень плодовитен, на данный момент выпущено шесть его альбомов, пятым среди которых и является "Lakes of sacrifice" вышедший осенью этого года на канадском лэйбле Bugs crawling out of people.
Альбом содержит двенадцать треков выдержанных в стиле тяжёлого маршиала, в лучших традициях Triarii, Karjalan Sissit и In Slaughter Natives ( в общем как и говорится на официальном сайте проекта, что ранее творчество In Slaughter Natives сильно повлияло на автора проекта).
Большая часть треков на альбоме очень агрессивны, а такие треки как "Legion of coldness", "Yigael", "Sacrifice" вообще просто сама агрессия и пафос, смешанный с оккультными намёками ввиде семплов. Тяжёлые и дисторшированные барабаны придают несказанной мощи этому альбому, а симфонические мелоди и хоровые семплы просто ведут в бой!!! На протяжении всего альбома Dead mans hill держит слушателя в тяжёлом напряжении. В общем музыка не предвещает хорошего конца, это просто какой то апокалипсис спускающийся с синe-чёрных небес на нас - слушателей.
В общем крайне приятный релиз. Конечно же ничего нового в жанре мы тут не услышим, но в музыкальном плане всё сделано очень профессионально, даже не к чему придратся. Да, может быть оформление диска немного бедновато, но ведь важнее содержание а не форма, верно?
8.5/10
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connexion bizarre
Dead Man's Hill is a dark ambient industrial project based in Belgium that first appeared in 1998. Their music is based around epic militaristic orchestration to create a massive sound and an eerie sense of foreboding like the imminent bloodshed of a long battle.
Opening the album is "Sacrifice of Subscription" alongside the spoken wordcore artist It-Clings delivering his graphic lyrical musings. The huge military marching tempo of Dead Man's Hill's music can't help but remind you of the immense marching hoards of Orc armies in the Lord of the Rings or the fright-inducing intensity of the orchestral soundtrack to the Omen films. Their music is very soundtrack-like with an undeniable sense of epic stature. "Sacrifice" adds another aspect to the mix by including chanting/ritual speech which heightens the mood of the whole piece although it does sound unintentionally humorous at times. Elsewhere - on "Eyeball" for example - there are other sampled and often manipulated spoken samples accompanied by the steady deliberate throb of the rhythmic military beat. Often, this is joined by the sound of a choir that only adds to the vastness already created. At other times, the obscured spoken vocals give an air of ritual or spiritual intent but can be too obscured to identify. Around the halfway point however, the mood changes. Lakes of Sacrifice veers off into darker territory with "In the Flesh" which is less militaristic whilst retaining the choral elements, adding a demonic voice resulting in a feeling of deranged nightmarish anxiety. The theme and an entirely more melancholic atmosphere continue into "Death by Fire" and on into "Vous-Deux" which is again heavy with otherworldly groans, ritualistic vocals and choral chanting. "Gard Enz" is gentler still, maintaining its dark swirling ambience and an operatic quality until the album closes with the jittery clinical precision of Fractured's choral remix of "Legion of Coldness".
Lakes of Sacrifice is an album of two halves; just when you think you have the formula and 'sound' worked out, everything is turned on its head and Dead Man's Hill reinvent themselves and move into entire new realms of dark and disturbing ambience. The militaristic quality of the first half of the album is great but when the album starts to get darker and even more unsettling is when it really shines. If epic orchestration, militaristic beats and very dark ambience are your thing, this is a great album to immerse yourself in.
-- Paul Lloyd [7/10]
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blood ties e-zine
Dead Man's Hill presents us with his latest album Lakes of Sacrifice which is a harrowing journey of militaristic orchestral industrial that although stuck in a genre that's defined by having a pretty strict set of rules still manages to fit a little bit of originality into their arrangements. Arrangements are what I will call the music here because it sounds like many synth presets are used to create these tracks and that is probably what is holding this back the most.
If I could experience these compositions played back with an excellent orchestral sample library and some production techniques that aren't too rare these days (see The Protagonist, or Puissance for some great electronic orchestral music production) I think I would probably have a completely different opinion of this music. Of course I guess I have to talk about what is actually presented here and not what I wish this was.
The opening track “Sacrifice of Subscription (With it Clings)” kicks in with a harshly spoken monologue dealing with what sounds like everyday bitching. The dialog doesn't strike me as being pretentious but the way it is spoken does sound pretty rediculous. Dead Man's Hill kind of sounds like he's trying very hard to be angry but instead sounding quite silly. As with the music, I feel like the material could be presented in a different way and be totally acceptable, but I'm guessing my opinions on this type of music will be pretty far-out in left field as I don't listen to a ton of it.
“Sacrifice Before Harvest Moon” is a track that stands out on this album because it is composed well and includes some more electronic elements which make it unique. The choir sounds are produced pretty well and there are a lot of them in this track so it works. The drums might be the worst sounding part of the production and it's too bad because this could be improved a ton just by adding a good bit more reverb, and even more so if some better samples were used.
A lot of this has a very cinematic quality to it especially Yigael which features a galloping rhythm and soaring choir to form a track that reminds just a little of Star Wars. “Sacrifice” follows in line with Sacrifice Before Harvest Moon and features a more electronic texture with the thundering toms.
I'm really on the edge of almost liking this but the more cheesy elements prevent me from doing so and that sucks.
Overall Rating: C
Composition: B+
Sounds: C-
Production Quality: C
Concept: B-
Packaging: C
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gothtronic e-zine
Appearances can be deceiving. In case of the act Dead Man’s Hill it certainly is! When I first looked at the gruesome artwork, I thought that the album Lakes of Sacrifice would be another mediocre release. Luckily I was wrong. Dead Man's Hill, a Belgium project started in 1998 with the intension of making dark and ice cold music, is especially influenced by The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud and early In Slaughter Natives. There are also some traces of Puissance and Will in the music but apart from some slow peaces of music the sound is much more gloomy and aggressive than these bands. The themes of Dead Man's Hill revolve around Haitian voodoo cultists (Culte des Morts) and the sickness/cancer of mankind itself. This album is black, pitch black and the overall feeling that Dead Man’s Hill is one of utterly despair and damnation. The music isn’t very original but Dead Man’s Hill has done such a good job on this album that it doesn’t bother one bit. Just sit back and play this album a few times and it will suck you right in its dark/occult world and won’t let you go.
[8.1/10]
reviewer: erik, nov 2006
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gothtronic e-zine
From the very depths of the Belgium underground Dead man’s hill has been active since 1998 and has released a hand full releases already. Lakes of sacrifice is a pretty powerful release containing dark bombastic neoclassical and martial music. It sweeps you from the Somme battlefields into gothic graveyards, driven by the overpowering feeling of death. Dead Man’s Hill’s music can be compared to such artists as In Slaughter Natives and Puissance but with a gloomier feel. This gloominess comes from the effects on some sounds and vocals. without these effects this record would have sound more powerful and would really have blown your head straight off.
Although Lakes of sacrifice sounds far from original this is a cool record anyway and will apeal to Cold Meat fans. There is a good balance between the tracks, after you have been pounded by a heavy bombastic track you will have a little time to take a breath before they will take you further down in to the depths of hell. Especially tracks like “Yigeal”, “In other flesh” and “Death by fire” are violent and oppressive. Towards the end there is the addition of heavy metal guitars into the mix like on In Slaughter Natives “Sacrosancts Bleed” and the atmosphere becomes spookier. This music is pitch black and that is exactly how we like it: reveal the beast!
One point of criticism is the art work which is of poor quality and does not fit with the music. I am sorry to say this. I was more impressed with the design of their “Esoterica orde de Dagon” release.
[7.5/10]
reviewer: remco, nov 2006
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