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blueiskewl · 1 year

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Ancient Herculaneum Scrolls Blackened by Vesuvius are now Readable

X-ray scans can just tease out letters on the warped documents from a library at Herculaneum.

The lavish villa sat overlooking the Bay of Naples, offering bright ocean views to the well-heeled Romans who came from across the empire to study. The estate's library was stocked with texts by prominent thinkers of the day, in particular a wealth of volumes by the philosopher Philodemus, an instructor of the poet Virgil.

But the seaside library also sat in the shadow of a volcano that was about to make terrible history.

The 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius is most famous for burying Pompeii, spectacularly preserving many artifacts—and residents—in that once bustling town south of Naples. The tumbling clouds of ash also entombed the nearby resort of Herculaneum, which is filled with its own wonders. During excavations there in 1752, diggers found a villa containing bundles of rolled scrolls, carbonized by the intense heat of the pyroclastic flows and preserved under layers of cement-like rock. Further digs showed that the scrolls were part of an extensive library, earning the structure the name Villa of the Papyri.

Blackened and warped by the volcanic event, the roughly 1,800 scrolls found so far have been a challenge to read. Some could be mechanically unrolled, but hundreds remain too fragile to make the attempt, looking like nothing more than clubs of charcoal. Now, more than 200 years later, archaeologists examining two of the scrolls have found a way to peer inside them with x-rays and read text that has been lost since antiquity.

"Anybody who focuses on the ancient world is always going to be excited to get even one paragraph, one chapter, more," says Roger Macfarlane, a classicist at Brigham Young University in Utah. "The prospect of getting hundreds of books more is staggering."

Most of the scrolls that have been unwrapped so far are Epicurean philosophical texts written by Philodemus—prose and poetry that had been lost to modern scholars until the library was found. Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who developed a school of thought in the third century B.C. that promoted pleasure as the main goal of life, but in the form of living modestly, foregoing fear of the afterlife and learning about the natural world. Born in the first century B.C. in what is now Jordan, Philodemus studied at the Epicurean school in Athens and became a prominent teacher and interpreter of the philosopher's ideas.

Modern scholars debate whether the scrolls were part of Philodemus' personal collection dating to his time period, or whether they were mostly copies made in the first century A.D. Figuring out their exact origins will be no small feat—in addition to the volcano, mechanical or chemical techniques for opening the scrolls did their share of damage, sometimes breaking the delicate objects into fragments or destroying them outright. And once a page was unveiled, readability suffered.

"Ironically, when someone opened up a scroll, they would write on a separate sheet what they could read, like a facsimile, and the original ink, once exposed to air, would start to fade," says Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky who specializes in digital imaging. What's more, the brute-force techniques usually left some pages stuck together, trapping hidden layers and their precious contents.

From 2007 to 2012, Seales collaborated with Daniel Delattre at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris on a project to scan scrolls in the collections of the Institut de France—former treasures of Napoleon Bonaparte, who received them as a gift from the King of Naples in 1802. Micro-CT scans of two rolled scrolls revealed their interior structure—a mass of delicate whorls akin to a fingerprint. From that data the team estimated that the scrolls would be between 36 and 49 feet long if they could be fully unwound. But those scans weren't sensitive enough to detect any lettering.

The trouble is that papyri at the time were written using a carbon-based ink, making it especially hard to digitally tease out the words on the carbonized scrolls. Traditional methods like CT scans blast a target with x-rays and look for patterns created as different materials absorb the radiation—this works very well when scanning for dense bone inside soft tissue (or for peering inside a famous violin), but the method fails at discerning carbon ink on blackened scrolls.

Now a team led by Vito Mocella of the Italian National Research Council has shown for the first time that it is possible to see letters in rolled scrolls using a twist on CT scanning called x-ray phase-contrast tomography, or XPCT. Mocella, Delattre and their colleagues obtained permission to take a fragment from an opened scroll and a whole rolled scroll from the Paris institute to the European Synchrotron in Grenoble. The particle collider was able to produce the high-energy beam of x-rays needed for the scans.

Rather than looking for absorption patterns, XPCT captures changes in the phase of the x-rays. The waves of x-rays move at different speeds as they pass through materials of various density. In medical imaging, rays moving through an air-filled organ like a lung travel faster then those penetrating thick muscle, creating contrast in the resulting images. Crucially, the carbon-based ink on the scrolls didn't soak into the papyrus—it sits on top of the fibers. The microscopic relief of a letter on the page proved to be just enough to create a noticeable phase contrast.

Reporting today in the journal Nature Communications, Mocella and his team show that they were able to make out two previously unreadable sequences of capital letters from a hidden layer of the unrolled scroll fragment. The team interprets them as Greek words: ΠΙΠΤΟΙΕ, meaning "would fall", and ΕΙΠΟΙ, meaning "would say". Even more exciting for scholars, the team was able to pick out writing on the still-rolled scroll, eventually finding all 24 letters of the Greek alphabet at various points on the tightly bundled document.

Even though the current scans are mostly a proof of concept, the work suggests that there will soon be a way to read the full works on the rolled scrolls, the team says. "We plan to improve the technique," says Mocella. "Next spring we have an allowance to spend more time at the Grenoble synchrotron, where we can test a number of approaches and try to discern the exact chemical composition of the ink. That will help us improve the energy setting of the beam for our scan."

"With the text now accessible by virtue of specialized images, we have the prospect of going inside the rolled scrolls, and that's really exciting," says Macfarlane. Seales agrees: "Their work is absolutely crucial, and I am delighted to see a way forward using phase contrast."

Seales is currently working on ways to help make sense of future scans. With support from the National Science Foundation and Google, Seales is developing software that can sort through the jumbled letters and figure out where they belong on the scroll. The program should be able to lump letters into words and fit words into passages. "It turns out there are grains of sand sprinkled all the way through the scrolls," says Seales. "You can see them twinkling in the scans, and that constellation is fixed." Using the sand grains like guide stars, the finished software should be able to orient the letters on the whorled pages and line up multiple scans to verify the imagery.

The projects offer hope for further excavations of the Herculaneum library. "They stopped excavating at some point for various reasons, and one was, Why should we keep pulling things out if they are so hard to read?" says Seales. But many believe there is a lower "wing" of the villa's collection still buried, and it may contain more 1st-century Latin texts, perhaps even early Christian writings that would offer new clues to Biblical times.

"Statistically speaking, if you open up a new scroll of papyrus from Herculaneum, it's most likely going to be a text from Philodemus," says MacFarlane. "But I'm more interested in the Latin ones, so I would not be unhappy at all to get more Latin texts that are not all banged up."

For Mocella, being able to read even one more scroll is crucial for understanding the library and the workings of a classical school of philosophy. "Regardless of the individual text, the library is a unique cultural treasure, as it is the only ancient library to survive almost entire together with its books," he says. "It is the library as whole that confers the status of exceptionality." The scanning method could also be useful for texts beyond the Roman world, says Seales. Medieval books often cannibalized older texts to use as binding, and scans could help uncover interesting tidbits without ruining the preserved works. Also, letters and documents from the ill-fated Franklin expedition to the Northwest Passage in the 19th century have been recovered but are proving difficult to open without doing damage. "All that material could benefit from non-invasive treatment," says Seales.

By Victoria Jaggard.

#Ancient Herculaneum Scrolls Blackened by Vesuvius are now Readable #library at Herculaneum #Mount Vesuvius #The Villa of the Papyri #archeology #archeolgst #ancient scrolls #ancient artifacts #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #roman history #roman empire #roman literature #long reads

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slavghoul · 2 years

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Tobias Forge‘s t-shirts, part 3

» Part 1

» Part 2

Found some time in the day to get back to this series, so let’s go

Entombed – this is an original 1989 shirt originally available from the band via mail order along with their demo ‘Drowned.’ The frontman of Entombed was the late LG Petrov, if you’re interested Tobias once wrote an article for Sweden Rock Magazine where he reminisced about Petrov & his other band, Morbid

Iron Maiden – 1982 shirt from The Number of the Beast world tour 82-83, on the back has a list of countries which were part of the tour

Iron Maiden – Purgatory, featuring cover artwork from the single under the same name, shirt is from the early 80s probably sold on the 1981 Killers tour

Celtic Frost – To Mega Therion, the cover art is a 1977 painting by H. R. Geiger titled “Satan I” picturing Satan holding the crucified Jesus in one hand and a string with a host wafer in the other. Pretty eye-catching.

King Diamond – shirt from the 1987 European tour, has tour dates on the back and a giant text saying ‘Stay Heavy’

King Diamond – this is a pretty rare shirt also from 1987 from the day King played in Gothenburg, Sweden made specifically for that occasion

King Diamond – same image as above but this one comes from the 1986 US tour

Kreator – from the 1987 Terrible Certainty Tour where they toured their third album under the same name. A great record, personally my favorite from Kreator. Check out the cover for it, looks familiar :)

Kreator/Voivod – from the 1987 joint Kreator and Voivod tour in Europe

Merciless – featuring cover of their first album The Awakening, the painting they used for the cover is ‘The Vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones’ by Gustave Dore

Mercyful Fate – classic Melissa shirt, featuring art from Mercyful Fate’s 1983 debut album, a huge influence for Ghost but also many other metal bands - both then and now

Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break the Oath, from the 1984/1985 US tour

Morbid Angel – Blasphemy, from 1991, Tobias cut off the sleeves on it; on the back there are lyrics to the song Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, also known as Blasphemy

Morbid Angel – featuring cover of their debut album Altars of Madness, considered by many as one of the first death metal records ever made, alongside such other greats as Possessed’s Seven Churches and Death’s Scream Bloody Gore

Metallica – from the 1988 Justice tour, featuring art by Pushead of course and the line ‘Their money tips her scales again’ from the song And Justice For All

Metallica – Metal Up Your Ass, featuring Metallica’s 1982 demo; the name and the cover was to be used for their first album as well, however the label did not let them use it (turns out labels always sucked huh). The story goes that in answer to that a pissed off Cliff once said "I hate the managers. Let's just kill ‘em all”.. and that’s how the new title was born :)

Misfits – featuring the classic Crimson Ghost face of course. Crimson Ghost is an actual character from a 1946 series under the same name, Misfits simply made use of its likeness for one of their releases but with time it became the band’s mascot and logo

Misfits – with back cover art of the album Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood from 1983, their last one featuring Glenn Danzig

Misfits – featuring art by Pushead, you can also see it on the back cover of ‘Die Die My Darling’

Onkel Kånkel – the Swedish punk rock band Tobias shortly toured with in his early twenties. The text says “Sug min rock’n’roll penis” which translates to ‘Suck my rock’n’roll penis.’ He actually still has the shirt, I saw him wearing it not that long ago.

#tobias forge #trivia

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diethercordova · 1 year

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ANCIENT ART :

Sarcophagus of pakal (683 A.D.) the great King of Palenque.

• The large carved stone sarcophagus lid in the Temple of Inscriptions is a unique piece of Classic Maya art. Around the edges of the lid is a band with cosmological signs for sun, moon, and star, as well as the heads of six named noblemen. The central image is that of a cruciform world tree. Beneath Pakal is one of the heads of a celestial two headed serpent. Both the king and the serpent head on which he rests are framed by the open jaws of a funerary serpent, a common iconographic device for signaling entrance into, or residence in, the realm(s) of the dead.

• Pakal, the great King of Palenque who had ruled for almost 70 years, died. Pakal's time had been one of great prosperity for his people, who honored him by entombing his body inside the Temple of the Inscriptions, a pyramid that Pakal himself had ordered built specifically to serve as his tomb. Pakal was buried in jade finery, including a beautiful death mask. Placed over Pakal's tomb was a massive sarcophagus stone, laboriously carved with an image of Pakal himself being reborn as a god.

• The Maya city of palenque had risen to greatness in the seventh century A.D., only to mysteriously go into decline. By 900 A.D. or so, the once-mighty city was largely abandoned and the local vegetation began to reclaim the ruins. In 1949, Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier began an investigation at the ruined Maya city, specifically at the Temple of the Inscriptions, one of the more imposing structures in the city. He found a stairway leading deep into the temple and followed it, carefully breaking down walls and removing rocks and debris as he did so. By 1952, he had reached the end of the passageway and found a magnificent tomb, which had been sealed off for more than a thousand years. There are many treasures and important work of art in Pakal's tomb, but perhaps the most striking was the massive carved stone that covered Pakal's body.

MEDIEVAL ART :

Christ of Mercy between the Prophets David and Jeremiah (between c. 1495 and c. 1500) by Diego de la Cruz

• This devotional, eucharistic image was the central panel in the predella of an altarpiece. Christ is depicted as the Man of Sorrows with the crown of thorns and displaying the wounds of his Crucifixion. The texts on the scrolls refer to his Passion. The artist worked in Burgos, in northern Spain, and collaborated with Gil de Siloé, a sculpture by whom is shown in this room.

• Middle Ages paintings were rich with religious symbolism and imagery. Medieval artists and their paintings predominantly portrayed holy figures and biblical narratives. These narratives had a hierarchy, which was predominantly dictated by the spaces the paintings would occupy. The Medieval artwork that depicted scenes considered to be more important would occupy notable focal points in a church or altarpiece, whereas less significant scenes would radiate outwards.

• Diego de la Cruz was a Spanish painter who may have been of Flemish origin. He was active in Burgos and the neighboring region.His artistic personality is largely defined by two works: Cristo de Varón de Dolores entre la Virgen y San Juan, at the Museo del Prado; his only signed work, probably created between 1475-1480, and the Estigmatización de San Francisco de Asís at the Iglesia de San Esteban de Burgos (1487-1489). Based on an analysis of these works, it has been possible to make other attributions: notably, Cristo de Piedad entre dos ángeles at the Colegiata de Covarrubias , and the Cristo de Piedad entre los profetas David y Jeremías, the central tableau of the predella of an altarpiece and companion to two other tableaux (of the prophets Isaiah and Daniel) in the collection of the University of Liège, which have been attributed to the German painter, Hans Leonhard Schäufelein.

RENAISSANCE ART :

The Last Judgment by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1535–1541)

• The painting is about the second coming of Jesus, the day when God shall judge all humanity. Michelangelo has painted Jesus in the center surrounded by saints. The top portion of the painting shows the resurrection of the dead to heaven and the bottom portion shows the descent of sinners into hell. The use of colors and excellent brushwork make this painting of the most revered painting in the world.

• The Last Judgement is the name of the fresco located on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It was designed and realized by the Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti between 1533 and 1541. Michelangelo’s masterpiece was inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy and is mentioned by Dan Brown in his Inferno.

• Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.

MODERN ART :

Radiant Baby by Keith haring (1990)

• Using chalk, he etched his signature designs onto the walls. One of these was his Radiant Baby, which to him was one of the purest and most positive human experiences. It became a recurring visual idiom of Haring’s throughout the years and is now considered the artist’s signature tag. The image represents a pure and positive experience of human existence and is symbolic of Haring’s hope for the future. Although Radiant Baby derives its origin from Christianity it has been used in many of Haring’s other works associated with racism, drug addiction, AIDS awareness and tolerance.

• Keith Allen Haring was an artist and social activist from Pennsylvania whose work was influenced by the New York City street culture and graffiti art of the 1980s. A 1997 Vanity Fair article states that "some of his most characteristic imagery involved figures twirling around and playing together, happy but never aimless." Since Haring's death from AIDS-related illness in 1990, images he created that speak about racism, drug addiction, AIDS awareness and tolerance have become iconic.

CONTEMPORARY ART :

Still face you by Njideka akunyili crosby (2015)

• The artist, wearing a yellow dress, is seen with her husband (in the red shirt) and other family members gathered around a table in an interior. The artist has said that in this painting she was reimagining bringing her husband, a caucasian American whom she met at Swathmore, to Nigeria to meet her family for the first time. The stately rendering of her body in contrappasto evokes both classical sculpture and Old Master painting, The wholly blank expanse in sunshine yellow behind evokes the more contemporary world of abstract painting. The Xerox transfers from Nigerian magazines and from old and more recent family photographs line the walls, articulate the frame of the balcony and animate the patterned dresses worn by the other women present and the checkered upholstered chairs.

• Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a Nigerian-born visual artist working in Los Angeles, California. Through her art Akunyili Crosby "negotiates the cultural terrain between her adopted home in America and her native Nigeria, creating collage and photo transfer-based paintings that expose the challenges of occupying these two worlds". In 2017, Akunyili Crosby was awarded the prestigious Genius Grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

• When painted in pairs or groups, Akunyili Crosby’s figures rarely meet the viewer’s gaze. Instead, they seem bound up in moments of reflection left open to interpretation by the viewer. Akunyili Crosby’s subjects appear resigned and calm, showing few emotions. Her works render the characters’ mood more than any specific facial features. There is a balance between intimacy and longing, between pleasure and nostalgia.

1:29 pm / Nov,19,2022

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metalshockfinland · 2 months

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LOUDSTAKK Releases Guilherme Miranda Signature Metal Guitar Tones

The ultimate metal songwriters digital product powerhouse Loudstakk has ignited the flames of extreme metal innovation once again with the release of their anticipated Guilherme Miranda Signature Metal Guitar Tones! This Neural Amp Modeler Profile Pack & Impulse Response Collection captures the essence of Guilherme Miranda’s iconic sound from his thunderous days with Entombed A.D to his current…

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#LOUDSTAKK

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amaranth-devi1 · 1 year

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Hauskaa Vappua.

Klara Vappen.

Walpurgis Night, also called Vappu or Vappen in Finnish and Valborg in Swedish, is a holiday in Finland and Swedish, in line with Midsummer. Celebrated over 30th April – 1st May, the holiday marks the feast of Saint Walpurga (710 – 777 A.D.). Walpurga, sometimes also called Walpurgis, was a missionary who spread Christianity in Germany. She studied medicine, opened a monastery, and was believed to repel witchcraft. Her entombed remains are still said to secrete healing oil.

#May Day #Labor Day #First Of May

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thethcministry · 1 year

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#Entombed A.D.#f-yourblog.com #Swedish Death Metal

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silvestromedia · 6 months

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SAINTS NOVEMBER 12

St. Ymar, 830 A.D. Benedictine martyr of England. A monk in Reculver Abbey, Kent, England, he was put to death by marauding Danes. Feast day: November 12. St. Cadwallader, 689 A.D. A king of the Saxon peoples. He is also called Cadwalla and Ceadwalla. Born circa 659, Cadwallader became king of the West Saxons in 685 or 686. He expanded his kingdom to Sussex, Surrey, as well as Kent, In 668, he resigned and went to Rome, where he was baptized on Easter eve, by Pope Sergius I. He died a few days later and was entombed in St. Peter's.

St. Livinus, 650 A.D. Martyred Irish bishop, ordained by St. Augustine of Canterbury, England. He was the son of a Scottish noble and an Irish princess. Livinus and three companions went to Flanders, Belgium, where they evangelized the area. He was martyred near Clost, in Brabant. Also called Lebwin, he is identified by some scholars with St. Lebuinus.

ST. JOSAPHAT KUNCEWICZ, BISHOP AND MARTYR- This 17th century Ukranian monk and bishop lived, labored and died for the unity of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The feast day of this “martyr of unity” is celebrated on November 12. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/11/12/st--josaphat-kuncewicz--bishop-and--martyr-.html

St. Cummian Fada, 662 A.D. Irish monastic founder and defender of Roman liturgical customs. The son of the king of West Munster, Ireland, he entered Clonfert Monastery and headed the school there. He later became abbot of Kilcummin Monastery, which he founded. Cummian was a stout defender of the Roman liturgy against the Celtic school. His Paschal Epistle is still extant. Called “Fada,” Cummian received the name “tall” because of his height.

St. Lebuin, 773 A.D. Benedictine called Leaf Wine in his native England who worked with St. Boniface. He was a monk at Ripon, England, who went to Germany in 754. There he worked with St. Marchelm among the Frisians. Lebuin went to a pagan gathering at Marklo, where he won the respect of the Westphalian Saxons.

St. Machar. Founder of Aberdeen, Scotland, and companion of St. Columba. Also called Macharius and Mochuemna, he was baptized by St. Colman and joined Columba on lona. Machar evangelized the island of Mull. Consecrated a bishop, he became the Apostle to the Picts in the Aberdeenshire region.

ST. DIEGO, LAY FRANCISCAN, Born in Alcalà del Puerto, in Spain, around the year 1400. Didacus became a Franciscan lay brother. Although not a priest, he was sent to establish the Faith in the Canary Islands. During a plague in Rome in 1450, Didacus remained to assist the sick, even after the Curia had fled. Nov 12

St. Nilus the Elder Feastday: November 12 Bishop and friend of St. John Chrysostom. He was reputedly a member of the imperial court at Constantinople, modern Istanbul, who gave up his family and, with his son, Theodulus, took up the life of a monk on Mount Sinai. Theodulus was kidnapped by Arab raiders, and Nilus set out to find him. They were reunited, and both were ordained by a bishop at Eleusa. They then returned to Sinai. Nilus also became the bishop of Ancyra and was the reputed author of ascetical treatises and many letters. There is a possibility that he may be confused with the monk of Ancyra called “the Wise,” who wrote the various treatises.

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metalindex-hu · 9 months

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Dieth: To Hell and Back (2023)

Dieth: To Hell and Back (2023) - https://metalindex.hu/2023/07/24/dieth-to-hell-and-back-2023/ -

Dobosok jöhettek, szólógitárosok mehettek, a Megadeth sokáig egyet jelentett a két Dave-vel, Mustaine-nel és Ellefsonnal. Így ismertük meg a csapatot, és el sem tudtuk képzelni az egyik muzsikust a másik nélkül. A kétezres évek elején az addigi harcostársak között azonban szerzői jogi viták támadtak, így miután a banda egy rövid, kétéves szünetet követően, 2004-ben újra aktivizálta magát, Ellefson nem csatlakozott druszájához, hanem a saját útját kezdte járni. Azóta – kis túlzással – se szeri, se száma azoknak a formációknak, amelyekben hosszabb-rövidebb ideig otthonra lelt, vagy amelyeket ő maga hozott létre (F5, Knight Fury, Altitudes & Attitude, Ellefson-Soto, Temple of Brutality, Metal Allegiance stb.). S bár később egy bő évtized erejéig még visszatért a Megadeth kötelékébe, miután pedofília vádjába keveredett, a Főnök végleg kirakta a bandából, és a basszusgitáros ismét a senki földjén találta magát.

Vannak zenészek, akikben ilyenkor munkál a bizonyítási vágy. Hogy megmutassák: vannak olyan kemények, kreatívak, mint egykori munkaadójuk, cimborájuk. Nem mintha Ellefsonnak bármit is igazolnia kellene, mindenesetre az első, vele kapcsolatos hírek arról szóltak, hogy minden eddiginél durvábbra veszi a figurát, és Dieth néven ezúttal egy death metal bandát hoz tető alá. Tavaly világra is jött az ivadék, méghozzá Gdansk városában. S hogy miért éppen ott? Talán mert ott történt meg a nagy egymásra találás az egykori Decapitated-dobos Michał Łysejkóval (s ha már így történt, talán az is hamar kiderült, hogy a lengyelországi stúdióidőt lényegesen kedvezőbb áron mérik, mint mondjuk az amerikait.) A zenekar harmadik tagja a brazil énekes-gitáros, Guilherme Miranda lett, aki korábban az Entombed A.D.-ben is megfordult, jelenleg pedig a Dieth-tel párhuzamosan az ugyancsak death/thrash-ben utazó Krow frontembere is.

S hogy milyen muzsikát hallunk a banda idei, bemutatkozó albumán? Némileg eklektikusat. Egy érdekes hangzású, kissé egzotikus gitárintrót követően robban be az erősen Sepultura-ízű címadó nóta. Miranda ordas énekére tetszetős gitártémák érkeznek, és ez a recept később, más dalokban is remekül működik. A Don’t Get Mad … Get Even!-t elsősorban a dal címét ismételgető, kiabálós kórus teszi emlékezetessé. A Wicked Disdain végén, majd az azt követő Free Us All-ban végre Ellefson hangszerének öblös basszushangjai is főszerephez jutnak. A Heavy Is the Crown elején egy remek Down-os (á la Eye of the South) riffelést kapunk ajándékba, és azt gyanítom, ebben a dalban Miranda és Ellefson énektémái váltogatják egymást.

Ha így van, mindez remek bemelegítés az album következő, érzelmes nótájához, amelyben Ellefson vállalja magára a frontember szerepét. Erőteljes, karakteres orgánuma van, amire Mustaine a Megadethben valamiért nem tartott igényt. A Walk with Me Forever a Dieth-debüt legnagyobb slágere, abszolút rádiós nóta. Az általam a cikk elején említett ekletikának a címadó-típusú, durvább szerzemények jelentik az egyik, ez a dal pedig a másik végpontját. Utóbbi egy kicsit ki is lóg a sorból, az anyag alaphangneme ennél jóval kíméletlenebb. A The Mark of Cain végét egy remek sikáló-reszelő gitártéma koronázza meg, a legrémísztőbb kalandunkra azonban nem itt, hanem a Függőkígyók Termében kerül sor (In the Hall of the Hanging Serpents). Ezt követően, az instrumentális Severance hangjaira jól is jön egy kis ellazulás, ugyanakkor némi hiányérzetem is van a dal lecsengését követően: szép, de rövid, monoton, s így nem juttat el a katarzisig.

Összességében az eredetinél egy fokkal dallamosabb gitárral operáló Sepultura zenei világára emlékeztet az anyag. Négy és fél pontot nem adnék rá, de egy erős négyest mindenképpen megérdemel. Kíváncsi vagyok, ezen a néven lesz-e folytatása, vagy Ellefson ismét egy újabb projektben éli majd ki a változatosság iránti vágyát.

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