Judas Iscariot - Dethroned, Conquered and Forgotten (2000)^{Release ID: 4981}

Andrew Jay Harris cuts a lonely figure in the already isolative world of black metal. In 2002 when he confirmed that Judas Iscariot was no more, he had already given the band’s albums back to the labels who released them and took no money in return, asking that any money be put back into the underground. When he played his last show with the band in 2000, he dedicated "The Black Clouds Roll Under the Parapet of the Sky" (from the “Distant in Solitary Night” album from 1999) to "the destruction of the capitalist scum who tried to destroy black metal." This EP from the same year as that final performance (released just 3 months later) is once again largely performed by Akhenaten himself, except for the drums that Cryptic Winter (Duane Timlin) is credited with delivering.

Anyone familiar with Judas Iscariot will find similar fare over these five tracks when compared with the rest of the discography. Judas Iscariot’s sound is cold, ice cold, with cymbals that sound like discs of frozen water being shattered each time they are struck. The drums on their own are a vicious assault to contend with, even before we get to the scathing attack of the guitar and harsh, abrasive and gloriously grim vocals. However, take time dear listener to marvel at the slowly decaying pace of the instrumental track, ‘March Upon a Mighty Throne’ that revels in drab and dank majesty before the chaos of a “Special Blitzkrieg” version of ‘Spill the Blood of the Lamb’ from the “Heaven in Flames” album (1999) rounds off what feels like a really short twenty-one-minutes.