Protector are one of those bands that skirted around on the fringes of thrash and the proto death scenes in the 1980s and like I said in my review of their “Reanimated Homunculus” back in 2013 Protector courted much underground smugness by those who had found their music via vinyl or cassette at the time. “Cursed And Coronated” represents a truly new album fronted by Martin Missy (still the only original member in the band), plus three extremely talented Swedes, as the previous effort was a mixed bag of material. The cover art is awesome as you would expect from Necrolord his work is coveted by metallers worldwide and I too think his work is truly magnificent.
My initial impressions of this sixth album was very mixed as I couldn’t quite decided if this was a lame duck or completely inspired as it has a wrought over familiarity about the riffing which possibly tugged at the slender tendrils of memory of the bands previous work. After the intro piece “Xenophobia” kicks in with a rasping riff and double kick undercarriage that eventually is nullified by a breaking riff and increase in speed. The sound on this album harks back to a time when minimalism is preferred over outright clinical finesse something that Protector has had on all of their releases over the 20 plus years of existence even with other band members over those years as well. Martin’s vocals are as ever stripped back to throat scraping rawness but completely fitting. “Selfdesdrugtion” is a mouthful to say but cleverly done as the pace is retained and that overtly simple chorus line chant of the title works well as it did on “Xenophobia”.
The title track takes a slight diversion into a more melodic stance with opening lead break and pulsing bass and for me personally the bass could have been a tad louder or dominant in the mix but I get where the band is coming from with the approach adopted. The title track is far slower wrestling with the traits of death metal and a repetitive riffing style that had me thinking about Dream Death’s debut “Journey Into Mystery” bizarrely. I don’t know many people who are familiar with Protector’s material and it seems that those who like this band are divided into the thrash camp of “Golem” and “Urm The Mad” in the 80s to the death camp of “A Shedding Of Skin” (an album I think is one of the best death metal releases ever put out) and “The Heritage” of the early 90s as both eras are quite different and the thrash era is where this album predominantly resides as “Six Hours On The Cross” proves with a borderline speed metal riff and raucous execution within the drums.
The Lord Of The Rings saga by Mr Tolkien has proved to be the source of inspiration for rock and metal acts for decades now and “The Dimholt” is sonic representation of that scene in ‘The Return Of The King’ part of the trilogy. The tune is bristling with anger and vitriol as you’d expect if you have read that part of the saga. Probably the fastest tune on the album the drums threaten to veer off a sonic precipice but the lulls in speed to slower more deathly double kick helps balance the song extremely well on the edge of that drop. The dynamics of this album are entrenched in the gnarly riffing and tempo modifications that retain momentum but also create a pithy and authentic album that sticks to an old school approach, no production trickery, no keyboards, no other instrumentation, no clean vocals, just unashamed thrashing veracity. Tagged on the end of this are three bonus tunes recorded live in 2013 in Dresden and sound as you’d expect, stripped bare but thrillingly intense bouts of thrashing violence.
(8.5/10 Martin Harris)
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