MESSIAH - Christus Hypercubus DigiCD

Switzerland has always been a fertile breeding ground for Extreme Metal. Messiah were formed in 1984 and issued two truly ground breaking records on Chainsaw Murder Records, »Hymn To Abramelin« in 1986 and »Extreme Cold Weather« a year later. In the early 1990s Messiah signed to Karl Walterbach’s Noise Records label and issued three more full-length albums: »Choir Of Horrors« (1991), »Rotten Perish« (1992) and »Underground« (1994) before going their separate ways.

In 2018, Messiah decided to reform in the original line-up of their Noise Records albums with Andy Kaina on vocals, Steve Karrer on drums, Patrick Hersche on bass and band founder R.B. Brögi on guitar. Lavish re-issues of »Hymn To Abramelin« and »Extreme Cold Weather« came out on High Roller Records before a new studio album entitled »Fracmont« was released in 2020. This is now followed by »Christus Hypercubus«, Messiah’s opus magnus.

On November 4th 2022, fate struck as former Messiah vocalist Andy Kaina died after a heart attack at the age of only 53. It was a huge shock for everybody involved. Andy's last live performance with Messiah took place at the Old Capitol in Langenthal, Switzerland, on the 20th of November 2021. Towards the end of the year, Andy left Messiah because, in his own words, "he had lost the motivation to be in the band and wanted to concentrate on other things in life." Messiah and Andy Kaina stayed friends though.

However, Messiah had already decided after Andy's announcement of leaving the band to carry on with the band. Marcus Seebach from Chur became the new Messiah singer in late 2021. Shortly after, work on a new studio album began. "V.O. Pulver [renown Swiss record producer and currently also second guitarist with Messiah] and me created the basics for new songs in January 2022," explains guitarist and founding member Brögi. "Within three weeks, V.O. and me had written the entire new album. I developed the whole concept and the lyrics during this time as well (apart from one song text, which is the brainchild of Marcus Seebach). It was a very creative period indeed."

"We did it like we usually do it," laughs Brögi, "we just wrote and recorded the songs for "Christus Hypercubus" without thinking too much about it, very spontaneously. Circumstances were a bit more complicated though this time around because we were not all together in the rehearsal room arranging the material. Fate struck as because of a skiing accident Steve Karrer was not able to play drums for six months. In total the new material is harder and faster than "Fracmont". There is also a new touch, due to Marcus singing, as he is capable of doing these high screams. I think "Christus Hypercubus" represents our new situation very well, a new wind is blowing, but we have not lost any of the established Messiah trademarks of old."

Here and there songs like the slower "Speedsucker Romance" or "Christus Hypercubus" bear some "progressive" leanings as well, which makes the album sound interesting and fresh. "That's probably down to the fact that we ignore all rules of arranging beats," smirks Brögi. "We just add different ideas to each other, most often led by the guitars. That's why we will probably never write a rock hit. In the past it was pure chaos, nowadays it's more structured and professional."