Now this is more like it! Even a glimpse at the black and red cover and primitive drawing of the horned beast will give you an idea what to expect here; this is full on black-thrashing mayhem excreted straight out of the bowels of Satan himself, and goddamn he must be proud! Decayed either hail from Hell or Portugal (delete as you see fit) and have been at the game for almost twenty years now although have never really made it out of the depths of the black metal underground; perhaps I aught to hang my head in shame at having never heard anything off their previous six full-length albums, but there’s a first time for everything.
Upon first spin this intrigued me enough to whack it on the pile without giving any other writers a look in, but it wasn’t until after three or four plays that I really stood up and realised what an excellent album I had on my hands. From the offset this album really makes an impact; opener ‘Descent’ doesn’t so much kick start the album as it does maunder slowly through a foreboding layer of fog building up a great deal of suspense and allowing one to soak in the gloomy atmosphere, before really taking off and subjecting the ears to a thorough pounding. Relentless thrashing guitars and drums that show not a shred of mercy all combine into a massive wall of sound. At over eight minutes long, we’ve already become well acquainted with the sound by the time the second track kicks in, even if it does fade out with what sounds suspiciously like the opening bars of ‘Raining Blood.’
This album is a pure exercise in cold and callous emotions and naturally an insalubrious obsession with blasphemy can be expected. Certainly that is what I am taking from these 70+ minutes anyway. ‘Invernah…/Slaughter of the Righteous’ kicks up an unholy furore and you can literally hear the screams of the pious as they are butchered and their blood is spilled in the jagged guitar sound that lingers at an ominously slow and doom-tinged pace. The lyrics here are cheesy as hell; as you can probably guess its all totally over the top in the blasphemy stakes with talk of spilling the blood of the fair and impaling nuns; a little hard to take seriously but it’s all in good humour. ‘Endless’ skips straight into the slaughterhouse with some neat soloing, which is blown away by the truly mean, mighty riff that really gives the eardrums a good thrashing. It must be said that the vocals on this one in particular have kind of a Chuck Schuldiner vibe going on and this highlights the vague smattering of old school death metal influence that can be heard in the overall mix.
Once it’s worked its way into my cerebral cortex it’s futile resisting the urge to pound my fist and sing along to the insanely infectious ‘Blood On The Altar.’ There’s a real ferocious swagger to this number coupled with a filth-ridden guitar sound and killer bassline. The intro really draws me in as the track is brought in with a sturdy marching drumbeat and a loose, resonant bassline that sounds really mean and the punk styling of this bit is backed up with a Ramones cover in the bonus tracks. Personally I find the bonus tracks a little superfluous; with half of these 74 minutes taken up by such I do begin to feel fatigued towards the finish line and it seems a shame that they had to go and spoil an otherwise excellent album. To me, this would have worked better as a bonus disc, but live tracks and covers are rarely welcome unless they are exceptionally well done. Nevertheless, this is a most enjoyable album and if you are after your next black-thrash fix then this is for you.
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