Seven Sisters of Sleep/Ilsa - "Split 7” ...

Horror movies and heavy metal have always shared a bloodstream. Although one predates the other by a good fifty years, it is hard now to think of one without the other. Ever since Black Sabbath decided to name themselves after a Mario Bava film from 1963 (I tre volti della paura), metal bands that have followed their lead have found inspiration in the fright films of yesteryear and today. Venom, the original bad boys of black metal, decided to strike an earnest satanic pose (which was all a gag) because they disliked the Hammer Studios-like aesthetics of Black Sabbath, who always managed a “O God, please help me” in their songs about the devil, paranoia, and cocaine. By the early 1990s, doom metal bands recast their eyes back towards the late 1960s and 1970s, a time when movies increased their violent content without decreasing their mood, sensuality, or artistry. In crafting songs that highlighted the works of such maestros as Bava, Jesús Franco, Amando de Ossorio, and others,  doom metal acts distanced their sound and brand from the gore-obsessed death metal scene and the all-too-serious Norwegian black metal movement.

In today’s metal scene, which showcases increasing levels of intermarriage between sub-genres, the horror film still reigns supreme as both a subject for songs and as an eye-catching aesthetic. Ilsa, a quintet from Washington, D.C.’s outposts in Maryland, are a crust punk-meets-doom metal band with plenty of cues taken from black metal and sludge. Ilsa are also yet another horror movie-obsessed band, with a name taken from Don Edmonds’s notorious Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975) and a catalogue with at least one record named after a 1972 Italian giallo film (Tutit i colori del buio). On their latest release, which is a split 7” with Seven Sisters of Sleep, the men of Ilsa cover Bolt Thrower’s majestic “The IVth Crusade.” Bolt Thrower, who are undoubtably the most underrated and overlooked death metal band of all time, were integral in creating the fusion sound of death/doom - a small sub-genre that embraces both death metal’s howling vocals and drop-tuning with doom’s funereal pacing and emphasis on heaviness, not hardness.



Ilsa’s take on “The IVth Crusade” is a faithful copy that only includes one unoriginal moment - the feedback-laden ending. Overall, Ilsa did the mosh pit classic a good service, and their rendition of “The IVth Crusade” is impressive, if only a little too faithful.

On the other hand, the record’s version of Hellhammer’s “Messiah,” which is performed here by Los Angeles’s Seven Sisters of Sleep, is a somewhat subtle alteration of the original. Falling closer on the sludge side of things, Seven Sisters of Sleep manage to keep Hellhammer’s original tempo throughout most of the song, but somewhere in the middle, they slow it down to an inhuman crawl and wail out like Mike IX Williams caught in a sewer. In many ways, Hellhammer is the perfect band for both Seven Sisters of Sleep and Ilsa, for the Swiss band’s unholy concoction of thrash metal, hardcore punk, and early black and death metal mirrors today’s high rate of interbreeding. In the end, Seven Sisters of Sleep’s new take on “Messiah” is both fitting and excellently done.

This split 7” is quick (a hair under eleven minutes long) and brutal. If you want a microscopic moment of head-banging frenzy, then you couldn’t make a better choice. If you want to explore what the new generation of metal has to offer, then this is also the right place. Both Ilsa and Seven Sisters of Sleep do justice to heavy metal’s past, and, more importantly, they are keeping the black wax candle of metal burning brightly towards the future.



Track List:
1.    Messiah (Seven Sisters of Sleep)
2.    The IVth Crusade (Ilsa)

Words: by Benjamin Welton

Seven Sisters of Sleep/Ilsa Split 7” is currently available from A389 Recordings.

Ilsa’s Facebook: HERE
Seven Sisters of Sleep’s Facebook: HERE
Split 7” Bandcamp: HERE