"Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)"
"Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)" is usually cited as the highlight of the album. According to Jeff Wagner in his book Mean Deviation, the song was a creative watershed in metal, and except for Mekong Delta, no other extreme metal band at the time had merged the genre with classical music so seamlessly. The orchestral section was conducted by Scott Laird. The song's first three minutes consist of orchestrated strings, synthesizer effects and the soprano vocals of Julianne Laird Hoge. After that the band joins in with its thrash metal output in contrast with the orchestration. Doug Mann executed the concept of the song and the band section was composed by Kurt Bachman. Dies irae itself is a Latin poem or hymn which prays mercy at the dawn of apocalypse. The poem was originally written by Thomas of Celano, an Italian friar of the Franciscans, who lived in 13th century and was an obligatory part of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass for some centuries before 1969. Kurt Bachman stated that the song was inspired by Mozart's Requiem Mass.
Read more about this topic: Sanity Obscure, Overview
Famous quotes containing the word dies:
“When one of us dies of cancer, loses her mind, or commits suicide, we must not blame her for her inability to survive an ongoing political mechanism bent on the destruction of that human being. Sanity remains defined simply by the ability to cope with insane conditions.”
—Ana Castillo (b. 1953)