Rating: 8.4

Country: USA

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Aurora Borealis

Track list:
1. Before The Spike
2. Sickness Of Snakes
3. Torture Is Too Kind
4. Seduce And Destroy
5. Trampled
6. L.T.F.V.
7. Zero Kingdom
8. Drenched In The Poisons

Band Website: Villians

Villains - Drenched In The Poisons

Desecrator- Vocals
Killusion- Guitars
Witch Whipper- Drums
Teeth- Guitar

You gotta love it when bands announce and reaffirm their modus operandi from the very first bar. Villains have no intentions of meandering around the shrubbery, they're here to kick your teeth in and efface the legacy of second wave Norsecore. This is orthodox black-thrash for austere puritans of the first wave persuasion, peppered liberally with shades of Darkthrone and Mayhem. Opener “Before The Spike” bares no bones about the band's agenda- this is acrid, putrescent crusty black metal, redolent of Under The Sign Of The Black Mark, In The Sign Of Evil, Apocalyptic Raids, The Day Of Wrath and the like, an unremittingly austere hymnal to Satanic metal's foremost clerics.

Influences are flaunted brazenly throughout this procession- “Before The Spike” is unapologetically Bathory, “Torture Is Too Kind” is dredged in Morbid Tales, while “Seduce And Destroy” steals a couple of moves from the Show No Mercy playbook, complete with non-stop lashes of guitar and tortured Araya wails. “Trampled” doesn't fall too far from the Panzerfaust tree, hewing rough fragments of The Return and Apocalyptic Raids before harnessing them into a startlingly stark, yet irresistible whole. “L.F.T.V.” does outstay its welcome a little with some well-intentioned, but largely unimpressive turns, and “Zero Kingdom” threatens to further dampen Side B, coasting on a rather threadbare, almost De Mysteriis dissonant riff (accented by guttural Attila bellows) and unimaginative chorus passage. Of course, all is redeemed with the strident, relentless title track, a cacophonous, tumbling-over-itself sprint accented by impudent treble-lead guitar, hernia-inducing Csihar grunting, magma-thick bass and manic d-beat-ing. It all coagulates into a thick, sticky sap, a morass of malevolence equal to any other black metal record this year.

Three word review, then: Buy or perish!

July 7th, 2007