PROCLAMATION, Messiah of Darkness and Impurity  (2008, Nuclear War Now! Productions)

The skull:
Here we see a skull transforming from human to goat — be careful, as a full goat skull will disqualify you guys from these halls! Of the three Proclamation skulls in the Skullection, this is the best one. I mean, check out those horns. The two on top seem to be enfolding the darkness, like the arms of a vampire, and that beard is gnarly in all its goatiness. It looks like a waterfall of coarse animal hair. (Do you suppose the word “goatee” came from somebody commenting on another chap’s chin beard, saying, “That chin hair is certainly goaty, sir!”?) And — this is the best part — the skull is growing goat ears. I’ve had goats for real, and those are goat ears if I’ve ever seen goat ears. Of all the skulls I’ve seen with horns, this one is probably the greatest of them all. It’s certainly the goatiest.

The music:
The opening of Messiah of Darkness and Impurity is right off any given early Bathory record. Of course. And while I fully expected Proclamation to continue with their Blasphemy worship on Messiah of Darkness and Impurity and Stuff — and they do to a great degree — there is some evolution here, and that alone is a big surprise. Their sound is still chaotic and frenzied, but the tumult is more focused throughout this album, front-loaded with more brutality and just slightly more modern (it sounds 1996, whereas the first album was more 1990). Though I didn’t hear much Bestial Warlust influence in the first album, I definitely hear it throughout this one. Messiah of Darkness and Impurity and All Kinds of Other Awful Things seems more one-dimensional than its predecessor, with too much emphasis on blasting. That’s all a bunch of hair-splitting, though, because this is still worthy of the Ross Bay Cult and all those who worship Revenge and drink the blood of virgin girls for breakfast and all that fun stuff.
— Friar Wagner