Bavarian barbarian Black-Thrashers BLACKEVIL are back with their second album. Set for release via Dying Victims Productions on September 25th.
Cinematic sampling starts the album off with a glorious sense of battle-ready Metal laying in wait for the bold adventurer. Without warning a battering display of ferocious drums, ripping riffs and rumbling bass launches into a visceral onslaught of melodically frantic blackened warfare. Maniacal vocals complete the speeding frenzy to conjure the full old school carnage, packed with atmospheric prowess and savage aggression in gorgeous, sepulchral harmony. The use of organs gives a Mercyful Fate style touch, revamped in a much more high-octane manner.
Piercing and spectral, there is an utterly massive sound that conveys primal and bestial ferocity with a much more nuanced and melody-tinged style of songwriting that is undeniably unique. Much like fellow Germans Witching Hour and Attic, the instrumental layering is clearly a carefully thought-out process to delve into a marvellously multi-faceted and monolithically epic range of Blackened, Speeding Heavy Metal excellence that leaves nothing but a desire to surge onwards through the eternal fires, baptising us in killer musicianship and malicious vocals.
The diversity between punchy fills and blastbeats is met with a huge arsenal of riffs and howling vocals to tie everything together in a viscerally classic sounding mix. There is nothing on this album that doesn’t scream of old school Heavy Metal, though never feeling like worship of any particular band or style, offering a rejuvenated and refreshing onslaught of pure steel. The musical complexity and emotionally charged, sometimes melancholic passages certainly add a mesmerising quality to the manic battery of speeding extremity that cannot easily be forgotten. Variety is not only used to full potential but is kept in check to only enhance the restlessly hellish Heavy Metal.
A demonic concoction of all things Heavy Metal, this spectral record will both call listeners to battle and summon otherworldly entities to your realm with its bold take on Black-Thrash that certainly stands out from any other bands in the movement. Untamed musicianship with fantastic delivery ensures for a relentlessly enjoyable and catchy listen that taints all in its morbid path to destruction. –8.5/10
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