Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins

Last updated
Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins
Pungent Stench - Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins.jpeg
Compilation album by Pungent Stench
Released 1997
Recorded April 1988 – October 1993
Genre Death metal
Length69:12
Label Nuclear Blast
Pungent Stench chronology
Club Mondo Bizarre - For Members Only
(1994)		Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins
(1997)		 Masters of Moral, Servants of Sin
(2001)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]
Chronicles of Chaos (9/10) [2]

Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins is a compilation album of "rare and unreleased material" [1] by Austrian death metal band Pungent Stench. It was originally released in 1997 through Nuclear Blast, two years after the band had split-up. [3] The album, "which collected all the rare and unreleased Pungent Stench material available," [3] contains tracks from the band's early demo tapes, Mucous Secretion, and Extreme Deformity, which was released as the group's first EP in 1989. [4] These "infamous" demos, along with a split-LP with Disharmonic Orchestra, caused a considerable amount of interest in the group, eventually leading them to sign a record deal with German label Nuclear Blast. [4]

Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, aggressive, powerful drumming featuring double kick and blast beat techniques, minor keys or atonality, abrupt tempo, key, and time signature changes, and chromatic chord progressions. The lyrical themes of death metal may invoke slasher film-stylized violence, religion, occultism, Lovecraftian horror, nature, mysticism, mythology, philosophy, science fiction, and politics, and they may describe extreme acts, including mutilation, dissection, torture, rape, cannibalism, and necrophilia.

Pungent Stench band

Pungent Stench is a death metal band from Vienna, Austria formed in 1988. Their last known lineup consists of Martin Schirenc (vocals/guitar), Danny Vacuum (vocals/bass), and Mike G. Mayhem (drums). Pungent Stench achieved early on prominence in the death metal scene due to their unique style of extreme metal and their controversial lyrical content, a seamless blend of gore, paraphilia and black comedy. They dissolved in 1995, re-formed in 1999, then split up again 2007 after recording a final studio album, eventually released in 2018, and re-formed again in 2013.

Nuclear Blast German record label

Nuclear Blast is an independent record label and mail order record distributor with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States and Brazil. The record label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Germany. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on to releasing albums by melodic death metal, grindcore, industrial metal, power metal and black metal bands, as well as tribute albums. It also distributes and promotes two post-hardcore/metalcore labels, SharpTone Records, focused on American scene, and Arising Empire, focused more on European bands such as Novelists, Imminence, Cold Snap and While She Sleeps.

The compilation comes in special packaging, which consists of a black box with the CD and a 24-page booklet containing all of Pungent Stench's releases, live shows and photos of the band that were taken from around the world. [2] By this package, Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic praised the release stating, "Well packaged, Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins effectively sums up the group's early days when they were strictly a 'brutal splatter metal' group, before they would eventually slow down their music and write songs about sex rather than gore." [1] Birchmeier also defined Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins as a "suitable retrospective for one of the most notorious death metal bands of the 1990s." [4]

Adam Wasylyk of Chronicles of Chaos webzine, gave the album a rating of 9 out of 10, stating that "Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins is composed of hard-to-find, rare and compilation tracks to serve almost as a 'best of,' a quality remembrance to one of Nuclear Blast's better bands." [2]

Chronicles of Chaos was an extreme metal webzine. It focused on artists that are generally outside the metal mainstream, and occasionally covers other forms of extreme music as well. Online since August 1995, Chronicles of Chaos was one of the first webzines in the world for that genre of music. It was a nonprofit publication since its inception. Chronicles of Chaos stopped publishing new articles in August 2015.

Track listing

All songs were written by Pungent Stench.

  1. "Pulsating Protoplasma" – 2:51
  2. "Dead Body Love" – 4:00
  3. "Miscarriage" – 2:20
  4. "In the Vault" – 3:00
  5. "Rip You without Care" – 3:40
  6. "Festered Offals" – 2:54
  7. "Pungent Stench" – 2:20
  8. "Extreme Deformity" – 4:05
  9. "Mucous Secretion" – 2:53
  10. "Molecular Disembowelment" – 5:26
  11. "The Ballad of the Mangled Homeboys" – 3:30
  12. "Daddy Cruel" – 3:32
  13. "Tony" – 4:05
  14. "Madcatmachopsychoromantik" – 9:15
  15. "Extreme Deformity" – 5:15
  16. "Festered Offals" – 2:59
  17. "Pulsating Protoplasma" – 2:41
  18. "Pungent Stench" – 2:28
  19. "Embalmed in Sulphuric Acid" – 1:58

Tracks 1–5 were taken from the split-LP with Disharmonic Orchestra; tracks 8–10 were taken from the Extreme Deformity 7-inch EP; tracks 6–7 and 11–14 were taken from various compilation appearances; tracks 15–19 were taken from the Mucous Secretion demo.

Disharmonic Orchestra band

Disharmonic Orchestra is an Austrian death metal/grindcore band that was formed in Klagenfurt, in 1987. Two demos were recorded. A gig in Germany with Pungent Stench led to a deal with Nuclear Blast in 1989. The first outcome of that deal was a split with country-mates Pungent Stench. After they released two full-length albums with Nuclear Blast they signed a new deal and released their third album on Steamhammer. The albums sound rather different from each other. The band took a break in 1994. This timeout lasted until 2002 after their debut album Expositionsprophylaxe had been re-issued they released studio album, titled Ahead.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Birchmeier, Jason. "Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins - Review". Allmusic. Macrovision. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 Wasylyk, Adam (10 March 1998). "Pungent Stench - Praise the Names of the Musical Assassins, Review". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  3. 1 2 Schwarz, Paul (14 January 2002). "Vomit to Vanquish the Vatican". Chronicles of Chaos. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 Birchmeier, Jason. "Pungent Stench - Biography". Allmusic. Macrovision. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
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