ALBUM REVIEW: Trench Warfare – Hatred Prayer

Here I review the new full length from Blackened Death Metallers TRENCH WARFARE who I am sure will deliver total devastation. Set for release on August 9th via Transcending Obscurity Records.

1. Decimate Legions sets things off with cosmic sounding ambience, Sci-Fi sampling and a really strangely epic vibe that I did not expect at all from a band compared to Blasphemy and Conqueror, sure enough though raw grinding instrumentals blast into barrages of thrashing warfare. Menacing vocals over storming guitars and drum hammering really confirms my attraction to the band with total chaos. Morbidly devouring its way into existence, the album has a damn strong opener.
2. Spare No Wrath fires right back into searing blastbeats, churning guitar assaults and vitriolic vocal slashes. A storming array of total frenzied extremity that rips away at you with violent musicianship and primitive songwriting for a totally old school, gloriously intense and richly perverse experience. Whipping into grooves, the track is catchy in the most menacing of ways, letting simplicity and a passionate aggression do the work. Excellent.
3. Axioms brutally slams in with doomy guitars and snare pummelling that creates a marvellous tension, building into thrashing cascades of morbidity. The savagery of the music is totally killer with a nice drop into headbanger friendly grinding assaults, forcefully tormenting guitars and drums backing up a violently grunted performance from the vocalist, all working in unison to make an excellently monolithic piece of War Metal supremacy. There is also some gorgeous drum fill work to break things up nicely. Brilliant.
4. Barbarous Temperament storms out classic bestial riffing that shreds away at the weak with forceful grooves that quickly descend into a depraved whirlpool of tremolo picked ferocity and blastbeats. Snarling vocals and utterly fantastic instrumentals make the track a memorably intimidating performance with hideously heavy songwriting, execution and a damn awesome raw production that certainly complements the music. Wonderful.
5. Astral Projection burns with scoldingly atmospheric doom-laden guitars and drums, tormenting vocals soon joining the mix. The slower tempo crawl is evilly performed with a ritualistic feel to the dragging music and a definitive sense of foreboding. Tortured, demonic vocal work over the mid-tempo assaults sounds killer with some nice riff work and carefully interwoven speed changes. It was certainly nice to see some variation that paid off to add a bit more dimension to the album. Gloriously done.
6. Evil Shall Triumph drops us right back into true War Metal assaults with bestial riffing, thunderous bass, pounding drums and hastily howled vocals that altogether pummel and decimate anything in their path with a crushing storm of total ferocity and brilliance. This is the pinnacle of extremity to my ear with sounds astounding energy from the whole band and nicely used “Archgoat style” vocals in parts. Blisteringly chaotic, aggressive, harsh, mesmerising. This has to be the best song of the album for its totally unrelenting performance and slight flares of technicality. Fantastic.
7. Behead Muhammad falls back into menacing drum assaults, barbarically gruesome guitar work and harsh vocal-chord shredding yells. Hammering out totally fierce soundscapes filled with an unholy amount of noisy chaos and vitriol, they will take no prisoners. Energetic, twisted, full of life and totally savage. Another killer piece of skull-crushing, sonic decimation from the bowels of hell that shall inspire total chaos.
8. Young Lord is a short, speeding piece with a really enjoyable punky energy to it, solid riffs and drums taking the foreground to blast through a tight and face-melting assault of the senses with some fun, upbeat paces to the track to back up the vocal yells. Regardless of its short length, I really enjoyed this song.
9. New Lord slows things with gorgeous, almost tranquil guitar riffs that have this burning melancholy but with a feeling that the bands mournfulness will be short-lived. Chugging into slow-tempo, doomy and cavernous instrumentals with a huge wall of grotesque guitar riffing, I am immediately mesmerised by the odiously gruelling and atmospheric attention to detail the band spews forth. A really unique sound to find in a War Metal album that was utterly epic and offered a real diversity.
10. Blood Cleansing blasts right back into ripping guitars and blastbeats once more with menacing vocal hooks over the tormenting instruments. A barbarity that has been so present is back once again for a pummelling of the senses and to create a musical assault that will devastate anybody who is not a follower of this harsh extremity. The production really allowed the bass to beautifully cut through the mix, adding so much dimension to the primal groove of the piece and harden the punch. Devilishly fabulous, a damn evil song.
11. Sate Thy Lust follows up with some nice drum hits that drive the momentum into heightened aggression with cascading guitars and intricate drum patterns. Such an awesomely full-on soundscape of truly hellish visions is conjured up by the full band in this storming slab of total savagery with a forcefully entertaining and exciting performance that is fuelled by a volatile hatred. There is some excellent riff work especially on this track that really convulses with a monolithically menacing groove that none shall escape. Hideously beautiful.
12. Hatred Prayer closes this bestial opus with some doomy guitar work that builds momentum nicely with slamming drums punctuating the last bout of ferocity. Slightly more reserved instruments are met with grisly vocals before the full band rebuilds into some of their most gruesomely frenzied and aggressive barrages of bestiality yet for a final cut of truly nasty musical extremity. The guitar solo, while short, was really disorienting in such a cool way, adding to the chaos of the track. A killer closing piece the does not falter, just offering a last assault of true War Metal excellency, ending with a final brief revisit to the opening Sci-Fi sounds.

To some, this level of extremity might well be unlistenable. To those of us who appreciate the Bestial War Metal arts and the unleashing of chaos, however, this is some damn good material that should be a soundtrack to any public misdemeanour. A really impressive release from the band with a thoroughly primitive yet enjoyable performance. -7.5/10