With a dark sonic brand of raw old-school metal, this German band rocks out with the crusty leather-clad grace of Venom. They care about songwriting, even though things stomp out with a punk recklessness, yet it is deliberate in its mid-paced march. The vocals are rasped in more of a shout. The title track is more deliberate in the rock n roll attitude that adds some swagger to the metallic attack of the guitars. They are pretty satisfying riff writers. The tension is maintained, but they use restraint to avoid just blasting off at a more rapid tempo. This takes me back to one of the darker intersections of thrash metal and punk from the 80s. In some of it' earliest incarnations this might have also been considered black metal at one time.
They step on the gas a little for "Misanthropic Rish" which carries a little more of a punk feeling to it. The drummer is typically pretty tasteful for what they are doing and think when he lays the double bass down on this one it's effective. There is even a riff that reminds me a little of Motley Crue on this song. Think "Knock'em Dead", but then in the early days, Crue had more punk in their bloodstream. For a punk influenced band, the songs are longer than you might expect. " A Slave to a Poisoned Mind" is the most metal song so far. There is a marginally more creepy guitar melody to this one. "Bottomless Graves" comes closer to death n roll with a stark punk attitude. "Deadbeat" finds things moving in a more black metal direction, and these guys are often treading sinnilar dark waters a Watain, particularly in the throaty bark of the vocals .
"Gallows Trail" has a darker pulse as it marches down a dismal road. The album closes with "All Consuming Fire" which is another anthem of despondency. I think it also show cases this album's strengths which are the very tangible riffs, that proudly display song structure. Even when the pace picks up going into the first verse it's not at a blast beat. I will give this album a 9, it's solid showing of what black metal can be. This album comes out on October 18th on Into Chaos Records.
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