The Project Hate MCMXCIX – The Cadaverous Retaliation Agenda
- December 24th, 2012
- By Lord Faust
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The culmination of two years of work, and a crowd-funding experiment, The Cadaverous Retaliation Agenda marks the ninth studio album from metal masterminds The Project Hate MCMXCIX. As a long-standing proponent of the band — evidenced by my Devil’s Guide article on the subject — I look forward to each release, eagerly wanting to hear the next iteration in the continual evolution of their sound. I’ll admit to not having followed the progress updates on the album, and was swamped with work for the last 3-4 months. Then, to my surprise, in the early hours of December 12th, I got an early Christmas present in the form of this very album.
Ever since I first cut my teeth on the original Final Fantasy and, later WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, I have been an avid fan of early era strategy and role-playing games. Along the way, while I still had a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine — and before it turned into a roughly 1:1 ratio of advertising versus real content — there was a lengthy series of feature articles concerning a game called Ogre Battle. The name seemed peculiar enough that I simply had to find out what the fuss was about.
While I would be hard pressed to say Kyuss is an obscure band by any stretch, I think it’s fair to say they occupy the very nebulous space between a mainstream success and an underground, cult sensation. Being one of the main progenitors of the genre known as “stoner rock” — whether they really wanted to be, or not — Kyuss are certainly deserving of a niche place in the annals of rock history.
While I do a lot of reading on a daily basis, I would be the last person to consider myself an avid book reader. I tend to amass a number of books, about various things, and very slowly read my way through them; a process that can take months — and, in some cases, years. Given all of that, when I happened upon a rather convincing recommendation of The Gift of Fear, I cast off my usual laziness, quickly acquired a copy and read it within a work week.
I looked this band up on a blind recommendation from a friend of mine, and listening to a couple of tracks played off an iPod. As a credit to the band, however, that’s all it took for me to be instantly hooked. Given my usual proclivities for music on the heavier side of things, I was immediately taken in by the simplicity of the songs and the catchy, clever lyrics; you don’t need downtuned guitars and 200bpm drums to make for a great song.
Since some time in 1999, when I got my hands on a copy of This Present Darkness, I’ve considered myself a fan of Chimaira. Over the course of 12 years, the band has put out a solid back catalog of albums. As with most long running bands, though, numerous line-up changes have resulted in a vastly different line-up that I for got acquainted with all of those years ago. That said, this has not really harmed the band; if anything, the material on The Age of Hell shows an even more matured and talented band. 
Back in the very late 1990′s and early 2000′s, when Slipknot were at the height of their popularity, and discussions of said group almost always elicited commentary about Mushroomhead, I found myself following both bands. The similarities between the two groups are superficial and, ultimately, irrelevant as they pertain to things that have nothing to do with the music. Both bands have released a number of albums I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, as well as some releases I would rather not think too hard about.
