Death Feast from Portugal have been formed in 2017, but members of the band have been playing in various bands and projects, so they are in no way green or new in the scene. This is the band’s third full length opus containing ten songs, two being intro and outro. Music is raw and primitive black thrash metal with couple of blackened death metal influences thrown in here and there in the song structures. The production and all of the atmosphere of the opus are really raw and primitive at times, reminding of glorious times meaning first opuses by Bathory, old Sodom, early Kreator and all those proto black thrash bands from the eighties. Lyrically band also delves into those parts delivering hitters like ‘Banish from Monastery’, ‘Hell Funeral’, ‘Crossing the Fire’ but there are also hymns to metal like fantastic ‘Commandments of Metal’ so if you are into black thrash metal with some death here and there, also coming to mind Vulcano or Sarcofago, go get this one you will not regret it. Pure war!
Pantheon from Arkansas are relatively new band in the US extreme metal underground scene, this being their second full length opus. But members of Pantheon are in no way new to the scene playing or having played in Empyrean, Genocide Winter, Epoch of Unlight and many more. This one contains 9 songs. The music is that American school of death metal with lots of black metal and thrash metal influences, I can hear Slayer influence in awesome ‘Man-Infestation’. There are blast beats, blistering thrash death solos and brutal growled death metal vocals. But, there are also some epic melodies on this one like in my favorite Absence of Light with that great main guitar melody and this time vocals are black metal screeching not growling. With songs like heavy hitters ‘Death Is In The Air’ or ‘Eviscerate Desecrate Cremate’ there is no mercy, no holds barred blackened death thrash metal and I am really happy having discovered this band. Right on good record.
Time for Norwegian black metal to grace the pages of this zine. Slegest from Norway have their new opus out with Dark Essence Records. This opus contains eight songs, one being Status Quo cover, yes you read it right. Now, this opus is very interesting. It is basically old school Norwegian black metal like it has that vibe like it was played back in the nineties. But, the album is not your clone or nothing like that. This one has a mixture of doom and almost black ‘n roll feel in some song structures. There are no blast beats here this has almost punk rooted songwriting, simple yet effective and every song is a hard hitter. For example ‘Innsikt’ starts and ends with whistling and has almost country influence in some song structures, at least I heard it like that. ‘Forløysning og rus’ has that black ‘n roll feel and faster punk attitude like there was in early black metal which made me love this music so much. Besides SQ cover, all the lyrics are in Norwegian, also old school tactics, vocals are harsh but not too extreme, just the way they should be in this kind of album. ‘Vinterkristus’ is also one of my highlights on this album being a mixture of Motorhead, d-beat and black metal. The originality continues with ‘Gåte’ having that awesome saxophone solo towards the end of the song. ‘Til det største som finst’ has such guitar melody that it made goosebumps on my skin making it one of my favorite on this record. Status Quo cover is just something that is okay, different a bit than original but that is an intention to be. Superb album.
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