Whoooaahh!! Dirty evil Euro-metal time again! If you want cult - The Corroseum will give you fukking CULT! It's quite hard to point to the exact quality that makes FUTURE TENSE's sole vinyl offering so special and what takes them so much ahead of the competition at the time. Well, His Unholy Satanic Majesty is as they say, in the detail. Productionwise it's difficult to place "Condemned.." on a good/bad-scale. In terms of conveying the feelings of the music and lyrics it's perfect though, mostly thanx to this haunting, very sublime echo-effect on the guitars, making them sound like they come out of some mouldy crypt or back-alley, underground garage club set in the worst neighborhoods of Woerden. Van Drunen's vocals may not be the sweetest in Rock'n'Roll history, but an irate, screaming Zeeb Parkes (of WF General) is exactly what Metal in this caliber calls for. On the spoken parts in the pitch-black, epic Doom-monster "Swords Of Vengeance" his voice turns total Death/Black Metal and as far as Metallic innovation goes, these are one of the album's most impressive moments. The uglybeautiful, spiky logo and the weird, primitive cover art cannot go unmentioned, allegedly drawn by a local street junkie. Figures.

It's a dynamic record for sure, opening and closing with riveting Speed Metal, the title track and the aforementioned "Swords.." bringing on the Doooohm and the classic, galloping instrumental "La Quillotine" punching you with a fistful of killer leads in the middle. Few bands have managed to do such simple, uncatchy-but-fukking-CATCHY songs. (Perhaps they really did sell their souls to the horned one?) The respective debuts of bands like LIVING DEATH, ACID, WARRANT (GER) and RUNNING WILD spring to mind, and FUTURE TENSE are more than worthy of mentioning in the same breath as these classics.

The band officially reformed in 2003 after re-recording a few old cuts for a mini-CD and a Compilation some years earlier. They did a hanful of gigs in Holland, but sadly disbanded again in the beginning of 2004. You can educate yourself further on all things FUTURistic at their webpage and if you're having trouble finding this album I'm happy to announce that Doomed Planet records have just re-released it together with their 3rd and last demo, "Battle Of Metal". Consummate or suffer!

Listen to this record here. (provided by the Vibrations Of Doom webzine)