A good dose of Serbian necro speed metal is presented here, a second full length, but a band whom have had many shorter releases over the last ten years.

‘Inside the Nuclear Tomb’ is laden with d-beat and is rabid, gnarly and has the usual reverb vocals. There is a nice breakdown and change of tempo towards the end of the track giving it an early Kreator sound. ‘The Interceptor’ is pure black thrash attack. The guitar run in the background has me thinking of a Sacred Reich song, but unfortunately the solo gets lost in the mix. The album in general definitely improves as you progress. That said, the second track ‘At Dawn We Attack’ has a nice “melody”, yep a melody, in the musical arrangement, but don’t worry too much, these chaps are still worshipping the goat! A track like ‘Midnight Patrol’ is wonderfully inclusive and fist pumping metal, a change of character to the bestial bombastic nature of the majority of the release, this is where Terrörhammer have really developed from progression of their releases to date. Completing the album is ‘Tronized Goat Master’ that harks to more black metal inspiration than any other track on the album, especially the drumming. To be honest, it doesn’t sound as fulfilling as the rest of the album, there’s a breakdown (no…not THAT type of breakdown!) that puts on the brakes somewhat. In general it is a clever bit of song writing, but is perhaps too long at over the five minute mark, it hangs around too long.

From an overall perspective, Terrörhammer have developed and have captured this quite nicely on ‘Gateway to Hades’. The imagery, the vigour, the gnarly nature is all entombed in a web of competency, a strong release in general that still has the balls to scare the mainstream.

(8/10 Paul Maddison)

https://www.facebook.com/Terrorhammer

https://osmoseproductions.bandcamp.com/album/gateways-to-hades