Hostile Media 2012
1.Intro 2.Sepulchral Torment 3.Follow The Bastard Prophet
4.Blind From Birth 5.Seven Serpents 6.Statues Of Death
Thirty seconds of creepy intro before ‘Sepulchral Torment’
blasts open, gnarly old school riffing powering forth and utterly pummelling.
Reminiscent of the early days indeed, when death metal really was death metal.
Morbid, horrible, disgusting music played with absolute conviction and for the
love of the music…this is definitely not one for the trendy ‘core’ scenesters.
Fans of an older age will definitely reminisce at this, the music sounding very much in a
similar vein to many of the European bands that helped forge that early death metal sound. ‘Follow The Bastard Prophet’ follows on in similar fashion,
dirty and ugly death metal but with a real catchiness and an actual ‘song structure’.
It’s possible to hear the verses and choruses because this style of old school
death metal never suffocates under a barrage of blast beats and over technical
riffing. It's back to the roots and it’s a fucking joy to listen to!
And similarly ‘Blind From Birth’ is yet another homage to the forefathers of European
death metal, very early Necrophobic springs to mind here, the guitars a torrent
of melodic tremolo picked death metal mastery. The production is very to the
point, very natural and organic sounding. For all the dirtiness of the music on
offer, each instrument is balanced well in the mix and produced very similarly
to bands such as Cemetary, Séance and Necrophobic. So if any reference points
were needed, or you’re trying to guess what the band sound similar to, dust off
the said bands early material and you’ll not be far off the mark.
‘Seven
Serpents’ sees the pace being upped slightly, blast beats and faster guitar
work used, but mixed with the slower, dirty and melodic sections which adds
variety to the track. Closing this debut e.p. is ‘Statues Of Death’, another
track which incorporates all of the bands influences and tempos, as ever a very
heavy old school Swedish influence on display. A slower, heavier and doomier
pace being opted for here with creepy, reverb heavy guitar solos being incorporated for
added old school effect, slightly ‘Rick Rozz’ in their delivery. It’s been
quite a long time since I’ve heard a band playing this style of death metal and
this is a strange turn of phrase (for morbid, creepy old school death metal),
but it’s a real breath of fresh (read putrid) air. As mentioned earlier, fans
of death metal that were ‘there’ when the underground scene was
being formed will lap this up, it certainly brings a smile to the face as all
those memories come flooding back. Any fans (whatever age) of that style of
music from that era will love this; it oozes appeal. Dirty, nasty sounding death metal, played brilliantly with
a killer production that again, leads your memories to the early 90’s hay-day.
Rex Shachath have produced an absolutely outstanding e.p. that offers up five
tracks of everything that old school death metal should be, i.e. nasty, no
holds barred, to the point and with a production that goes straight for the
throat – all of which these tracks are/have. This comes highly recommended. Gore not core!
8.5 Out of 10
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