In 1993, following a previous demo, the four-song debut EP of the US Americans from Texas by Divine Eve saw the light of day. For just under 17 minutes, you can hear the finest death metal with an undeniable Celtic Frost influence. There is a lot of mid-tempo, but also doom-laden parts and occasional excursions into grindcore, which creates a certain dynamic within the soundscape. The CD was released by Nuclear Blast America at a time when the label was still exclusively dedicated to the finest underground material of the day, such as Sinister, Benediction, Hypocrisy, and the like.
This great EP is rounded off by the matching cover artwork, which depicts "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch. You can still buy this underground gem second-hand on platforms such as Discogs at a higher, but reasonable price. I can only give it my absolute recommendation, especially for fans of the ancient sound of bands like Celtic Frost, Pentacle and the like, as the addition of faster parts offers an even more extreme version of this sound. Unfortunately, the band never made it big, possibly because they never released an album. After releasing demos in 1994, the band went quiet for a while, or rather broke up, only to re-form under the name Crimson Relic to record the 1995 album “Purgatory's Reign,” which stylistically wasn't far removed from Divine Eve. In retrospect, this naturally raises the question of whether this renaming made sense or not.
In 2007, a discography CD entitled “Upon These Ashes Scorn the World” was released, which includes the “As the Angels Weep” EP as well as five additional songs from a Celtic Frost tribute and a 1994 promo release.
The band's last sign of life was the EP “Vengeful and Obstinate,” released in 2010 on Incantation's John McEntee's now defunct Ibex Moon Records label, which, like the EP discussed here, also features four tracks and runs for 17 minutes. More on this EP coming soon here. Although listed as “active” on Metal Archives, the band seems to have disappeared into death metal nirvana since at least 2020. It's a shame, but two great EPs remain as an awesome legacy!
