Review: HELL “Human Remains” (2011)

Review by Mohsen Fayyazi
Band: HELL
Album: Human Remains
Release date: 2011
Label: Nuclear Blast

Track listing:
01. Overture: Themes From Deathsquad
02. On Earth As It Is In Hell
03. Plague and Fyre
04. The Oppressors
05. Blasphemy & The Master
06. Let Battle Commence
07. The Devil’s Deadly Weapon
08. The Quest
09. Macbeth
10. Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us
11. No Martyrs Cage

It is always hard to write about unknown phenomenon, but it is tough to write about unknown feelings. To me, writing and describing HELL’s “Human Remains” is just like writing about a Métaphysique phenomenon or feeling as I feel, very strange every time I listen to this very(yyyy) unique album. To understand exactly what I mean, just try to describe the temperature of hell.

It starts with an epic intro which is a perfect start for the album, “Overture Themes from Deathsquad” will also be a start for the strange and unknown yet familiar feeling that you will have through the whole of “Human Remains.”Your adventure in hell will continue with ‘On Earth As It is In Hell,’ which has a brain stormer riff at the beginning. This track is the best one on the album with no doubt; very heavy, fast and powerful guitar riffs and solos which are joined by the great bass and drums riffs. Every music note in this song is written and performed with absolutely perfection, but David Bower‘s voice and his unique style of singing is the most eye (ear) catching element. I do not want to compare David’s voice and style of singing with anybody else, all I can say is that he sings the notes with a very strange feeling and you will feel fear, horror, flames, burning and melting metal, along with hell in your bones and soul. The band also filmed a video for this track which hypnotized me every time I watched it, again David’s role is the most eye catching one here too.

In 1666, in a mostly dead village, pestilence and plague ruled and quarantined the whole of the land. Under the dark cloudy sky, women and children were moaning and crying and it smells of nothing but death. The worst is yet to come though…. That’s just a part of the picture that the band painted in the third track, ‘Plague and Fyre.’ In fact, it is a horror track which reminds me of the brilliant horror metal of the mighty KING DIAMOND. Actually, I can see King’s horror metal foot prints in the whole of “Human Remains.” The next track is named ‘The Oppressors’ and you will recognize that it has some themes of metal gods, ACCEPT and JUDAS PRIEST. When I listen to this track I just feel that it is JUDAS PRIEST trying to playing ACCEPT, except that I don’t think Rob Halford can do what David did in this track.

I sometimes wonder what kind of music it would be if legendaries King Diamond, Wolf Hoffmann and Arjen Anthony Lucassen teamed up to form a band. I got my answer in the HELL‘s “Human Remains” with such songs as ‘Blasphemy and the Master’,‘The Devil’s Deadly Weapon’ and ‘Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us’. The heavy tracks, ‘Let Battle Commence’ and ‘The Devil’s Deadly Weapon’ are my other favourite tracks in this strangely amazing album; two true masterpieces, pure bred heavy metal.

HELL’s music is unlimited and that’s what makes it awesome. It seems having something to say was more important to the band than being loyal to a particular genre of music. From heavy rock to progressive metal elements can be heard in this album, but of course it is mostly heavy/power metal such as what we heard from the mighty ACCEPT. I want to mention again the unique and great role of David Bower as the vocalist on this album. He sings every music note with related emotion, so much that I could see the visions and pictures of the stories behind the music, like watching a movie. He sings in higher notes most of the time, also he used the vibration technique and the result is perfectly perfect. In my opinion HELL’s vocalist, David Bower is one of the best active singers in the all genres of music!

HELL‘s “Human Remains” is a unique album in the whole of heavy metal history, presented by musicians who (in my opinion) wanted to present a new face and colour of metal music. The album is mixed, mastered and produced by Andy Sneap perfectly and it is performed by the band’s members brilliantly, I cannot imagine better than this. It’s darkly dark, heavily heavy and strangely unique, an ace of hell. “Human Remains” will make you rock, think, cry or laugh depending on your mood and soul (how dark your soul is). As my final words, I really tried to describe this album for you but honestly I must confess that I couldn’t, as there are still many invisible angles of this album that I couldn’t see or understand well. I am very much looking forward to HELL‘s upcoming album “Curse And Chapter.”

Album Rating: 9/10