Here is some blackened thrash punk for you. The Venom worship of this project has always been tangible. That is now dialed up way past 11. It is faster and more punk than Venom was in their glory days. The first hint of melody in the guitars is not evident until the third song. The album has better production value than you might suspect, as it sounds like they have gone to great lengths to create something that sounds raw and organic, but is ripe with overdubs considering in the studio this is the work of one man. It races with more of a thrashing rage than not. The guitar playing is gradually improving with each album.
There is a rock n roll undercurrent to 'Slave to the Blade". The vocals are snarled with an even rougher rasp than Cronos spat out on "At War With Satan". The theme seems to be 80's streetwise metal tropes that could have come from a Twisted Sister album. The first song that strikes me as catchy is "Dungeon Lust" which is endowed with darker sleaze. The formula for songwriting seems to be shouting out the chorus. It works on this song but can be a trick they go to the well too many times with. While I find this entertaining for what it is, it is highly unlikely this is an album I am going to need multiple spins of. If you do you might like punk more than metal, and that is a valid life choice as long as you are honest with yourself about it.
'Deliver Us to Devil" is more boring than a song about the devil should be, He should have saved the lyrics for the riffs he wrote for 'Mercyless Slaughtor" as it would have been more interesting. As it stands "Mercyless Slaughtor' is a better song by far. Most of the songs are under three minutes so there should not be enough time to get bored. However when it feels like the riffs are being recycled like they are on "Doom Death Desire" then perhaps it is asking more than I thought. 'Fuck Off and Live" is a decent song, even if I prefer the sentiment of dying instead. I will round this down to an 8.5, it's a solid punk record dressed up in black.It drops March 8th on Metal Blade.
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