SADISTIK EXEKUTION: K.A.O.S.

Released: 1997

Yesterday I postulated that Portal could well be the purest manifestation of dissonant, inaccessible death metal, and if such a crown exists then it is from Sadistik Exekution from whom it has been wrested. The similarities are numerous, not the least of which is the apparent intention to be as extreme as possible with few or no thought to listenable sensibilities; the major difference is that Portal, despite wearing pieces of antique furniture as stage costumes and singing through gramophone horns, take themselves incredibly seriously. Sadistik Exekution has always known they were a circus. Their first two albums at least had some coherent material, but by the time of K.A.O.S. they had obviously decided that writing songs that were in any way memorable, catchy, subtle or even structured was simply not for them.

What they therefore released was 42 minutes of appropriately-titled mayhem. "Dejekta Infinitus" is a thoroughly exhausting holocaust of light-speed riffs and what can only be described as superhuman drumming. This is ridiculously, almost impossibly fast, as fast as or even faster than any grindcore in existence. And it goes for 5 and a half minutes! Over the top of this insane soundtrack, Rok shouts and slurs seemingly random words like a dangerously deranged drunk. After one track like this, most bands would shift gear or unleash some other kind of hell from their arsenal. On K.A.O.S., Sadistik Exekution has only one gear--overdrive. No sooner does the first track finish then Rok bellows "VI-OH-LENCE!" and the next one begins with almost no variation whatever. Dynamics account for precisely zero of this album's content and structure is almost as elusive; chaos is very much the essence of K.A.O.S., the sheer, unrestrained violence and unpredictable ethos of Reign in Blood but amplified a million times and with no restraint whatsoever.

So while K.A.O.S. succeeds in being extreme for its own sake, it fails for precisely the same reason. There's really no incentive to listen to any more than one track because that's enough to have heard everything that Sadistik Exekution is going to do on all the other songs. Unlike We are Death... Fukk You! and the seriously evil The Magus, the band does nothing more than play as fast as possible again and again and again. It's a neat trick and Rok's demented rantings are pure entertainment, but it does gets tiresome quickly.

1. Ultra Maximizer of Agony
2. Dejekta Infinitus
3. Volkanik Violence
4. Burning Blasphemy
5. Demon With Wings II
6. Voltage by Sadism
7. Horror Inferno
8. Sadistik Elektrokution
9. The Return of Proxima
10. Korpse on the Grave
11. Fukked Up and Buried

Rating: 35%