ANCIENT · Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends | RED 2LP

Red double vinyl in gatefold sleeve.

Background information about 'Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends'

Some records don't just get reissued — they crawl back out of the crypt, cape swirling, and demand to be heard again. Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends is exactly that kind of resurrection. Originally let loose in 1997, this is Ancient at their most theatrical and unhinged, a Norwegian black metal opus where mastermind Aphazel teams up with vocalist/drummer Lord Kaiaphas and vocalist Erichte to build something that sounds less like a genre exercise and more like a gothic horror stage production that got wildly out of hand.

The core is still razor-sharp black metal — tremolo riffing, blastbeats, that cold northern bite — but what makes this album a cult favourite is everything piled on top of it. Sweeping keyboards, mournful gothic pianos, cinematic detours and a sense of drama that borders on the absurd in the best possible way. "Malkavian Twilight" opens with genuine dread before the storm breaks, while "Vampirize Natasha" marches forward like a blood-drunk procession you can't step out of. Tracks like "The Emerald Tablet" and "Hecate, My Love and Lust" stretch the formula into strange, ornate shapes, and the whole thing closes with a cover of Mayhem's "Black Funeral" — a fitting nod to the scene that birthed it all.

Thirty years on, this still sounds like nothing else in the 90s symphonic extreme metal canon. It's over the top, it's ridiculous, it's magnificent — and it absolutely earns its place on your shelf.

For fans of: Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Emperor, Old Man's Child, Sigh

Other Versions

GREEN 2LP · Sold out

Track listing

LP 1:
A1. Malkavian Twilight
A2. A Mad Blood Scenario
A3. The Draining
A4. Um Sonho Psycodelico
B1. Sleeping Princess Of The Arges
B2. Her Northern Majesty
B3. Blackeyes

LP 2:
C1. The Emerald Tablet
C2. Willothewisp
C3. Neptune
D1. 11.5
D2. Hecate, My Love And Lust
D3. Vampirize Natasha
D4. Black Funeral

Manufacturer: 375 Media GmbH, Schlachthofstraße 36A, 21079 Hamburg, Germany, Contact: www.backonblack.com