Acheron; the name rings a bell somewhere in my mind. Isn’t that one of the oldest satanic death metal bands? Hey, wait a minute, isn’t Acheron the band of Reverend Vincent Crowley? That’s it! Now I remember why the name sounds so familiar, Crowley is a member of the misanthropic band Wolfen Society. And on their Conquer Divine CD I first saw the name of Acheron.

I never did something with that information, so when Decade Infernus 1988–1998 was making its first rounds in my CD-player I actually heard an Acheron song for the first time. And after a bit of research I found out that Acheron is a pretty well known band in death metal country. The band started out in 1988 when Crowley joined forces with Peter Gilmore, a classical composer and Magister of the Church of Satan. Between the releases of Acheron Vincent Crowley was asked (by Anton Szandor LaVey himself) to join the Church of Satan, which Crowley did.

Back to the music then; this album gives the listener a broad view of Acheron’s work. 32 songs are divided on 2 discs and represent the work from 1988 to 1998. As this is my first encounter with these disciples of Satan, I didn’t know what to expect. But this is actually some pretty good death metal. Apart from some productional flaws, this album kicks ass. I think the music is pretty cool; mid tempo death metal is combined with some serious fast and heavy music which leans towards black metal and some nice keyboards parts take care of the atmosphere.

All in all this is a great compilation album if you don’t have any albums of Acheron and you want to know the band. If you do then I wouldn’t bother getting this, unless you’re a real die-hard fan.