I was genuinely surprised to discover that `Death Hammer’ is actually Flayed Disciple’s first full length album. For a debut, it is incredibly professional, accomplished and polished, as well as visceral and intense. It is also a genuinely authentic-sounding slab of face-ripping death/thrash metal; the kind of thing you would expect from a seasoned bunch of old Americans who were there at the start of the death metal scene inFlorida. Not what you would expect from a young-looking bunch of dudes from Somerset.
Death/thrash is a funny sort of genre; evoking that particular period of time straddling the heyday of thrash metal, and the grisly rise of death metal. Get it wrong and it sounds awfully contrived, one-dimensional and tedious; or worse, some kind of naff parody. Get it right however, and you achieve that uniquely muscular and visceral, dark and aggressive sound that had necks breaking across the world; from the likes of Malevolent Creation, Massacre, Sepultura et al. Flayed Disciple most definitely fall into the latter camp, they really hit the nail on the head as far as the heavy death/thrash vibe goes, with fantastic, chugging, heavy riffing, frantic, thrashing passages, roaring, brutal vocals, and some seriously neck-breaking moments. All songs are peppered with simply fantastic guitar solos; melodic, dark, athletic and jaw-droppingly good. Often I am reminded of Alex Skolnick from Testament in his heyday.
The band effortlessly fuse the relentless fury of thrash legends such as Testament, Kreator and Sepultura, with the darker, pummelling aggression of bands like Massacre, early Cannibal Corpse and Dying Fetus. Vocalist Tim Whyte belts out a hefty, guttural roar, which, like the old school acts the band clearly worship, is both brutal and fairly clear; you could probably strip paint with it. There are a whole plethora of fantastic, dynamic riffs, which evoke exactly the right balance between crushing heaviness, manic aggression and dark atmosphere. It is also amazing that the band create such an intense atmosphere without using a single grinding blast beat, instead relying on dynamics and song writing ability, just as the old bands used to. Somehow they combine all these so-called `old school elements’ without ever sounding dated or out of touch, which really is a skill in itself.
It seems that Flayed Disciple’s star is in ascension; they seem to have all sorts of tours and exciting things lined up for them, and it is not hard to see why. They are a young band with exceptional skill and talent, and unlike a lot of extreme metal bands, actually know more than a thing or two about song writing, dynamics and atmosphere. Their debut album is highly polished and they sound like experienced veterans rather than young upstarts. My only minor gripes (and these are pretty minor) are that the subject matter of the songs is pretty much exactly what you would expect, and that occasionally the album is a little one-dimensional. The songs aren’t amazingly catchy, but instead they are heavy, devastating and likely to rupture something.
(8/10 Jon Butlin)
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