This record is almost a year and a half old. In these times I have listened to it many times and now decided to do some justice and write a review. Sweden, a country that is immortalized by bunch of Death Metal masterpieces has, with this album, produced something different although within the same genre. 9TH PLAGUE’s first (and last) proper album is a serious example how blasphemous Death Metal should sound like. Different in kind from most of their country’s Death maniacs they follow the steps of IMMOLATION and INCANTATION with MORBID ANGEL’s ghost hovering above them and giving hints for a proper direction. When I first heard it I was surprised how good this, not so well known, band is. As is the common knowledge, for good Satanic Death Metal the atmosphere is crucial. And this record has it in spades – listening to it is like drowning in a sweet molten lava vomited from the mouth of the unholy one. The color is red of course, with black and a hint of orange thrown in for a taste. And I could actually hear the colors – first I thought it was just an impression, but it happened every time I listened to it. The music and vocals resemble the bands previously mentioned as they are the genre gods and amongst the first ones to perfect this style. But this resemblance is not in any way hindrance to the enjoyment of this record. Quite the contrary, as with all the good bands, it even more pronounces how good they are, taking the well known elements and combining them into something I would call fresh and original. Due to the peculiarity of feeling it produces, “Apocatastasis…” is not a record for every mood; when art is genre defined, and this record surely is, the better the art the more surely it captures the specific feel of the listener. And this one will make your hating of anything holy pure fun, because it is never seriously satanic but very playful and interesting – yes, interesting, with so many blasphemous pearls spilling in your head you cannot count them. The whole thing is fairly short, around 35 minutes, with the track length around few minutes, just enough to give you a quick fix of Lucifers tales. If you like hellish Death Metal give it a try, maybe it will surprise you as it surprised me. The band is now split-up, so I suppose this is your last chance. www.myspace.com/9thplague