"Provenance of Cruelty" is the second album of Mactätus, originally released by Napalm Records in late 1998.
At the time of its release the hype for Scandinavian Black Metal in general and Symphonic and Melodic Black Metal in particular was already declining, following milestones such as Emperor's "In the Nightside Eclipse", Dimmu Borgir's "Stormblåst", Mörk Gryning's "Tusen år har gått", Gehenna's "Second Spell" or Limbonic Art's "Moon in the Scorpio".
The result was that at the time of their release in late 1998 equally brilliant Symphonic Black Metal albums such as Odium's "The Sad Realm of the Stars" or Mactätus' "Provenance of Cruelty" were not as appreciated by a majority of fans as the earlier classics before them and remained a bit obscure and underrated for quite some time.
While that changed later for Odium's debut album when it gained the underground cult status it deserves, "Provenance of Cruelty" somewhat suffered from the added drawback of being released by a label that at the time was already more focused on Gothic Metal, and also not necessarily one of the "cult" labels of the time. This, however, is definitely an album that belongs in every Symphonic or Melodic Black Metal collection and fans of the aforementioned albums should definitely check it out if they don't know it yet!
Around the year 2000 only few of the bigger labels released vinyl of most of their releases, and neither did Napalm Records. So this album has only been available on CD format until now. As it is one of the all-time favourite albums of the Northern Silence founder it is an honour to finally give this masterpiece proper vinyl treatment besides releasing a strictly limited CD edition in digipack.
The layout was adjusted slightly to the different formats but other than that the album remains in its original form and sound, so old and new fans can appreciate it in its full nostalgic magnificence.
