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Original 1987 sound !!! It’s not impossible that the guys in Messiah from Baar, Switzerland, were a bunch of genuinely insane maniacs. Thrash/death maniacs of course. Formed in 1984, the band helped to shape the sound of early thrash and death metal, but they did so in their own, twisted way. “Extreme Cold Weather” was Messiah’s second album, released in 1987 on the now-defunct label Chainsaw Murder. Again the band had recorded in the small studio in their hometown Baar, doing both the recording and the mix without any professional assistance. Maybe this is one of the reasons why “Extreme Cold Weather” has developed into a cult classic album by a band that was always both obscure and outstanding compared to their contemporaries. Messiah played a very unique and very extreme blend of early thrash/death: brutal and raw, unpolished, and never out to copy anyone. The songs are as much in-your-face as they are well thought out, again combining cutting thrash attacks, atmospheric melody parts and Messiah’s typical interludes and sound effects, all tied together by the album’s overall atmosphere that constantly shifts between eerie and slightly comical, thanks to the bizarre and sometimes funny lyrics and of course the most imaginative cover picture in metal history. “Extreme Cold Weather” is definitely one of the most unique outputs one can find from that time. “Extreme Cold Weather” combined both new and older material, the latter recorded in live situations. It helped to widen Messiah’s fan base and to build up their level of recognition, so that in the early 90’s, the band got signed by Noise Records. With their second album, Messiah created a somewhat strange and very sought-after cult-piece of mid-80’s thrash/death metal. Ulrike Schmitz |