There is a metal album worse than Illud Divinum Insanus, worse than Illuminations of Vile Engorgement, worse than St. Anger or Manslayer. This album is known as Upon the Crimson Rivers by Apocalypse.
Before I can properly review this album, I need to provide some context. The growing popularity of the internet during the late-1990s and early-2000s drastically lowered metal’s barrier to entry. More people learned about metal and became listeners of it, and some of those who did were inspired to make metal of their own, hoping to become the next big thing. Some of these new bands were good, most were mediocre, and others were just plain terrible.
That brings us to an individual named Shadow of Death. He originally listened to nu metal bands such as Slipknot and Papa Roach, but after discovering Soulseek, an ancient peer-to-peer file-sharing program, he quickly developed a taste for black metal. He was especially drawn to the works of The Black Legions from France. They inspired him to make similar work of his own. He believed he would become as renowned as them.
He was just 13 years old when he formed Apocalypse in 2003. In the following year, he would record three demos, the most famous – or rather, infamous – of which is Upon the Crimson Rivers. He aggressively advertised his work on almost every single English-speaking metal forum that existed back in the day, and he was met with universal mockery and derision. He responded to this feedback with the arrogance that is typical of adolescence. His behavior provoked even greater ridicule. Some even went so far as to create mocking entries about him on Urban Dictionary. He was eventually permabanned for being insufferable and he just disappeared from the internet after that.
Upon the Crimson Rivers was considered lost media for several years, but a user named Deadass3000 uploaded it to YouTube on December 21, 2020. This is one piece of media that should have stayed lost.
For starters, the production is almost non-existent. It’s so quiet it’s nearly impossible to hear. This is the hallmark trait of a phenomenon known as bedroom black metal. A teenager wants to record grim and frostbitten black metal, but his parents hate the noise, so he turns down the volume. This is exactly what Shadow of Death did. He didn’t have a real drum kit, so he used the drum machine included in Fruity Loops (later renamed to FL Studio). You would be forgiven for assuming there were no drums, but if you strain your ears, you can hear the repeated strikes of a hi-hat. All they do is occasionally switch between fast and slow tempos. They have no variety whatsoever.
The guitars are equally devoid of variety. The guy chooses a basic four note riff and repeats it throughout the whole song, but he can’t even do that right because he’ll make frequent mistakes. Instead of honing his skills and doing multiple takes, he’ll just keep going like a special needs kid barreling through an obstacle course. Sometimes he’ll try to play something more complex, mess up, and go right back to playing more basic riffs. One could be extremely generous and say this was a deliberate artistic choice to make the guitars sound more raw, but I feel that’s just making excuses for his terrible performance.
The vocals are the most infamous part. He doesn’t really shriek or howl so much as he hoarsely whispers. That’s another signature trait of bedroom black metal. It’s late at night and the teenager wants to record evil vocals for his black metal demo, but he doesn’t want to wake up his parents, so he lowers his voice. If you were to hear them for yourself, you would assume they were the work of some lousy troll, but the fact that Shadow of Death got angrily defensive when people criticized his music proves it’s not. The production, drums, guitars, and vocals are all terrible, but the music’s most egregious sin is that it’s just plain boring. Each song lasts for only a few minutes, but they’re so basic and repetitive that they feel like they go on forever.
Upon the Crimson Rivers is, without a doubt, the worst metal album of all time. This is the absolute bottom of metal’s septic tank. It’s atrocious in every conceivable way, but despite all my harsh words, I don’t hate it. Perhaps I’m just getting soft as I get older, but I feel that hating this album is like hating a child’s art class painting. They’re obviously new to the craft, so you can’t fault them for their ineptitude. Furthermore, Shadow of Death is in his 30s now, so he probably sees this project as an old shame. If he’s still alive, I’m willing to interview him.