"The Executioner" is a very, very intense piece of absolutely crushing death/thrash. It has some of the fastest speeds and riffs that you’ll have heard in a good while and the blend of death (which is much less prevalent) and thrash metal is perfect. What ensues is a thirty-three minute long attack of utterly vicious thrash metal. Some of the best today.
The album starts off with an immediate assault of speed and aggression. No bullshit breakdowns, no gay interludes or mellow riffs, just straight-up killer thrash. Honestly, there must not be one part on the entire album where they slow the tempo down. “Devilish Agressor” will pretty much give you an idea of what the rest of the album will sound like upon further listening. It starts off with a hectic blast beat and uber-fast riffing. The riffs on this album, while admittedly having a sound akin to lots of modern thrash, are all very catchy and blindingly fast. There’s some really good mosh parts, catchy, fast-as-fuck riffs all over the place and the vocals are somewhat reminiscent of Steve Souza from Exodus. The transitions are all smooth; they know how to switch from an extremely fast tempo to a very catchy mosh part, such as on “The Executioner” at the 3:50 mark or “The Eyes Of Hate“ at 0:22. Very headbangable riffs fly all over the place, not slowing down for one minute, and you’ll most definitely find yourself headbanging intensely to many, if not all of them.
The drum department on “The Executioner” deserves praise separate from the other aspects of the album. While it may not be that inspired or Hoglan-esque, it is dangerously fast. It ranges from thrash beats to mind-blowing blast beats, and all of the fills are, as well, extremely fast. Fast may not always mean good, but in this case it does. The drumming does a fantastic job of propelling the album forward, making everything sound much more intense. The bass on this album pretty much just takes the guitars and follows suit. (A good thing).
There is not much else to be said about "The Executioner." It is an onslaught of straightforward yet insane death/thrashing madness. Some of the riffs sound a bit retro-thrashy, which might be a bad thing for some people, but other riffs easily redeem the uninspired ones (of which there aren’t that many). A very fun listen and essential for any thrash fan. These guys know their thrash and they pull it off exceptionally well; it beats the living fuck out of most newer thrash bands today. To boot, the album artwork is awesome and they have one of the dumbest yet coolest names out there.
81/100
-SmithMetal84
No comments:
Post a Comment