Review by Daniel for diSEMBOWELMENT - Dusk (1992)

Being an Australian extreme metal fanatic from way back in the late 1980's, it was perhaps inevitable that I'd possess a strong passion for arguably our most significant metal export (at least from purely an influential & creative sense) in Melbourne's masters of the doom/death sound diSEMBOWELMENT. I'd suggest that very few diehard fans suffer from as complete an infatuation as I do with this band though. I simply worship the ground they walk on & back in the early 1990's I thought of them as being a lot more than mere humans. Without actually knowing the band members, it was very hard for me to envisage them as being every-day people given the remarkably dark, unique & generally foreign sounds they managed to conjure up. I was talking to Bjorn from Grave Upheaval, Grotesque Bliss & Temple Nightside about them the other day & he shares my infatuation to a similar scale so it's not just me. diSEMBOWELMENT had a way of encapsulating everything that was so wonderful about the early 90's extreme metal scene &, to make things even more intense for a young Aussie, they were also from my home country which was a rarity for the elite metal artists in the world at the time. While there's no doubt at all that 1993's "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" album was a game-changer for the global doom/death scene though, for Bjorn & I it was diSEMBOWELMENT's 1992 E.P. "Dusk" that first saw that door opening & I've never felt that it received the respect it deserved because it's a remarkable release in its own right, particularly when you consider that it was the band's first proper release & that there was nothing out there that sounded anything like it at the time.

I was lucky enough to pick up an original copy of the "Dusk" E.P. as well as diSEMBOWELMENT's second demo tape "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" by sending cash to the band in the mail. I can't quite remember the timeline for that taking place in respect to "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" but I think it's fair to say that all three releases would be placed on their own individual pedestals in my teenage bedroom from the time they first hit my ears. I even sought out the band's early 1990 "Mourning September" demo tape through the tape trading scene, a release that I found to be pretty decent without ever hinting at the same levels of euphoria as I'd received from diSEMBOWELMENT's subsequent efforts. It's interesting that, despite the clear crossover of material between the three most significant releases, I still think that all of them should be considered to be essential as they each bring something a little different to the table in terms of timbre & texture. None of them are particularly polished (which I strongly suspect was intentional) but there's definitely enough variation to keep things interesting.

The "Dusk" E.P. is a half-hour long affair that includes what were arguably diSEMBOWELMENT's finest three tracks so how could it not be a completely mind-blowing experience? It opens with the band's calling card in "The Tree of Life & Death", a nine-minute piece that begins with one of diSEMBOWELMENT's more brutal & blasting death metal passages before descending into the mire with some of the darkest extreme doom metal we'd heard to the time. It's a clear indication of the thick, oppressive atmosphere this band was capable of creating even at such an early point in their recording careers. The version we have here is remarkably similar to the one we receive on the debut full-length in September of 1993 too, perhaps having been given the time to fully develop after first being birthed on 1991's classic "Deep Sensory Procession Into Aural Fate" demo. This is followed by the epic twelve-minute "Burial at Ornans", another reenactment from the second demo tape & a piece which I feel still had a bit of work to do before reaching its most complete realization on "Transcendence Into the Peripheral". This is the reason for me not being able to reach full marks for "Dusk" actually as "Burial at Ornans" simply feels a little less complete than it would in the near future with some of the less doomy sections not maintaining such an elite level & the track lacking some of the atmospherics that it would gain on the album version. Eight-minute closer "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores" is another story altogether though & brings with it the most transcendental aura, transporting me to wonderfully dark & obscure places that I'd never imagined existed before. Although I do feel that the album version is a little more polished & complete, this doesn't diminish the impact of what is undeniably one of the earlier examples of the funeral doom metal genre to hit a proper release. The sum of these three classic works leaves me succumbing to pure devastation & infatuation, very much in awe of my elder countrymen.

While "Dusk" may not quite be as fully realized as "Transcendence Into the Peripheral" was, all of the ingredients were already there to see the global metal scene receiving one of the true greats at their chosen craft. I mean, if this had ended up being the only diSEMBOWELMENT release then one gets the feeling that it would have received far more attention & be referenced by a wealth of extreme doom bands as being highly influential. As it stands though, I can't recommend "Dusk" enough. The monstrous vocals of guitarist Renato Gallina are as scary as you'll ever find in music & the instrumentation around them brings to mind the feeling of being a young child lost in the darkest of forests in the blackest of midnights with drummer Paul Mazziotta's blast-beats being used over the slowest, doomiest riffs imaginable in such a fashion that was completely unheard of at the time. The production is absolutely spot-on too, leaving layers of filth & decay in the guitar tone that works to further accentuate the sheer weight on the diSEMBOWELMENT sound. Perhaps I'm biased given my personal interactions with the band at such a young age (even if it was by mail) but I feel that I'm mature enough to be able to see the forest through the trees these days so I implore anyone who thinks bands like Spectral Voice, Winter or diSEMBOWELMENT's younger sibling Inverloch are where it's at to seek out "Dusk" as I have no doubt that you'll be dazzled by what the true masters of the doom/death genre had to offer way back in 1992.