I wish there were more labels like Dark Essence. They don’t plague us with downloads for albums that are utter crap but release a select few a year which are all about quality over quantity. This time with three from Helheim, Vulture Industries and The Battalion landing in a package was no exception and all three albums are well worth picking up.
The Battalion have neither the most original name or sound, hell they don’t even come from the most original place for a metal band, hailing from Bergen in Norway as they do but they make up for all this with a sound that is great to bang your head to and simply be metal along with! Members of this lot have played with all sorts in the past, Borknagar, Old Funeral, Taake and Grimfist amongst them. On playing this it was none of these bands that I was particularly struck by comparisons of but one from just down the fjord in Oslo, namely Aura Noir.
Yep this is blackened death, thrash in a nutshell and it is played with panache and fervour. The instant 1,2,3,4 is hollered by singer Stud Bronson (or Tore to his mum) everything brashly piles up behind him and thumps along. Vocals are well defined in the mix and are rasped but in a clear fashion so you can understand most of what they are on about, not that any subjects dealt with are deeply philosophical or anything I hasten to add. Everything about this album is done on the hoof, dealt with in a fast and clinical fashion that sees the band simply romping through eleven tracks in around 38 minutes. The galloping pace never slows or relents; there is time for that at album end unless of course you feel like pressing play again. You are going to have no problems finding both melody and solos from the guitar department, handled neatly by Lust Kilman and the drum battery pounds the whole way through.
Songs are about death, graveyards, the reaper and all those sorts of things and in fact one could look at the titles and think this was the work of Witchery but to me the music on this is more in the style that band used to have but unfortunately long lost the spark that can be found here. There is little point in going through this on a track by track basis, how many more ways can you say fast, groovy and leaden and mention death growls and even that well tried coughing fit that the vocalist uses to particular good effect on the last number? I was particularly amused by one song title though ‘The Roaring Grandfather’ put a smile on my face as to whether someone had fed him too many beans, you can imagine him parping away on his rocking chair and getting down to this for sure. ‘Head Up High’ and bang it! All that is missing here is the prospect of seeing them live, on the strength of this it would be a blast.
http://www.myspace.com/thebatallion666
