By: Anders

Posted: Dec 13, 2005

This is one of the albums I have awaited like a little boy awaits Christmas morning. I can't remember when or how I got turned onto BoltThrower though one thing is sure, after I had my first listen to them, I was captured by the slow grinding carnage, the crushing death metal tunes the band delivered, together with their tales of war, historical correct or more fictional, it all worked and left its mark.

The band's 8th album, and which one, as soon as the intro has ended, the enormous wall of guitar is once again on front of me and the double kick drumming is starting to sound like artillery somewhere far away, the bass from Jo Bench rumbles evil just below and at times at same level as the guitars, a nice detail, to let the bass be heard as much as it is on here, as she is good at making fitting noise with it. The guitar work is in vein with the earlier material, as it should be when speaking of this band. The good old crunchy BoltThrower guitar tone with the reminiscent drive and captivating grinding effect. The compositions are sounding like the band has looked back in time, at their own material and has embraced the best of their deeds and spiced them up with today's standards, a really good idea, which works to its full extent. There are many hooks on the album, the music is really captivating and is not easily letting its grip of the listener go, and there are as always good haunting guitar melodies and atmospheric leads. The guitar intro to 'The Killchain' which is in the same vein as the intro to 'Cenotaph', as it's more or less the same riff, a brilliant move to take an old track into a new like this.

It's also good to have Karl Willets back in the band, not that Dave Ingram did a bad job on the last album "Honour Valour Pride", not at all, though considering that was the only album Willets didn't deliver vocals on, he is a big part of the band's sound. And he does deliver a good job on this album and the stories he has made fits very well into the musical scores, a really worked through album on all accounts. Just take the production which is really crushing and heavy as always, but damn it does display all the details from each instrument well, without losing focus on the final and complete output of the sound.

This is for sure one of the best BoltThrower albums so far, the band seems really focused and it seems like all the material on the album is really worked through. I have so far spent many hours on the album, and have not grown a single bit tired of it yet, I keep on wanting more and more, and that seldom happens to this extent. This is a sure buy for existing fans of the band and a secure place for new fans to start, this is a high class death metal album, 100% BoltThrower, they haven't strayed from their path, but it still sounds very fresh and energetic, BoltThrower is on top of the world.

Rating: 9/10

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