If you want retro, this is the album to get. This album sounds like it came out in 1985, in all respects save the vocals, which are basically the black metal screech/shout so popular nowadays. That doesn't hurt the album in any way, though - it's still killer, and it still takes you back to the bullet-belt and spiked leather collar days of the mid-80s.

This album is pure '80s from top to bottom. First, they went to the closet and dusted off some real old-sounding equipment. The album sounds like that '80s standard of a Les Paul through a Marshall, and a big, fat P-bass underneath. Next, they wrote songs in the greatest tradition of the early thrash scene - all about Satan. It seems over the top, with titles like "Hellblood", "Hellcult Attack", "Hallways to Hell", etc., but then, didn't POSSESSED, ONSLAUGHT, and SLAYER do the same thing? Finally, the music itself is a perfect clone of the way bands wrote metal back then - all pedal-string and diad riffs, with that mid-paced 'metal' beat. There's the obligatory peppy opener "Blood on the Altar", the obligatory bass and drum breakdown in the middle of "Hallways to Hell", the obligatory deft harmonized riffs in "Night of the Sinner", the obligatory thrashy album-ender "Hellcult Attack", and even the obligatory blues-breakdown at the end of "Sacrifice to Satan". The only thing missing is a cowbell. Bottom line - this album kicks ass in exactly the same way stuff did back in the '80s, but for some reason it doesn't sound dated - maybe because they followed the clichés to the letter. You want REAL old-school metal - this is it.

© 1999 lord vic
[originally appeared in Eternal Frost Webzine issue #2]