Blimey, here’s a band with a history. These Canadian thrashers are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year. Thirty years…..what were you doing thirty years ago?
Chances are you weren’t even alive. Well these Canucks were churning out quality thrash metal in that peculiarly aggressive Canadian style. I mean real thrash, not your “larking about in Bermuda shorts & comedy song” bollocks but thrash of your leather, studs and bullet belt variety. Think “Hobbs Angel Of Death” as opposed to “Acid Reign”.
Not the most prolific of bands mind you as this is only their fourth full length album and their first for thirteen years. Having gone through a few line-up changes since the last record (Eric Dubreuil (bass) and Kris DeBoer (drums) left and were replaced with Daniel Nargang and Kiel Wilson respectively) the band are sounding tighter than ever and don’t be under the misapprehension that this is some nostalgic retro act, no no no this is ‘proper’ thrash metal. Thrash with a real death metal flavour to some of the tracks.
“Enter The World Of The Undead” is the party starter and it’s a ripper. Reminding in parts of Thanatos & Coroner this is an old school thrash banger and the perfect opener to the record. The atmospheric and eerily melodic “In God You Trust” is next followed by “Signs Of Evil” which has an intro riff and overall structure that is pure Judas Priest ….. and that is always a good thing in my book.
Now I’m not a big fan of overly long songs, “get in, get it done and get the fuck on with it” is how I like my bands to approach albums and the shortest song on “No God” is only a shade under five minutes long. Normally this would put me right off but Infernal Majesty manage to cram so much into their songs that you don’t find yourself looking at your watch thinking “I should have put on a Nails album”. Mind you it’s taken the lads long enough to make the record so I guess they had a fuckton of ideas and riffs mounting up.
Vocalist Chris Bailey is fantastic here, a mix of Mille Petrozza and KK Warslut his singing along with the shred-fest from Ken Hallman and Steve Terror are the standouts on every track and the new rhythm section keeps everything bolted down tight. The mix by Chris Holmes (no, not that one) is spot on and every note and bile spat syllable hits your ears as Satan intended.
Well worth the purchase price this especially on vinyl so you can appreciate the awesome cover art by Safir & Rifas. I reckon “No God” will delight thrash and death metal fans in equal measure.
(8.5/10 Mark Eve)
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