ALBUM REVIEW: Barbarian – Viperface

Italian Black-Thrash horde BARBARIAN are back with their 5th album via Hells Headbangers Records on August 12th. Let’s get into the action!

Pounding drums and melodic riffs jump into action with the sharpened iron of pure Heavy Metal glory. The sleazy grooves and malicious vocals add more bite to the tracks while the anthemic qualities still come through very strong to ensure legions of headbangers hear the call to battle. There is a primal energy to the opening moments while embellishing the songs enough to not just feel like another clone of the greats, giving Barbarian’s own flavour plenty of spotlight. While not afraid of melody, the rhythmic hooks of the band are an equal asset. Fist-pounding anthems and blackened assaults sit in equal regard with a diverse mix ensuring this record keeps you on your toes. After their last album impressing me a lot, I am extremely glad to hear they have not lowered the bar at all.

Bounding into ravenous assaults of thrashing rage, there is no denying the sheer ferocious zeal of this band, who are five albums into their career and still reaping death with no remorse. Only a band dedicated to the true arts of sonic steel-forgery could retain such quality and not grow stagnant, which is absolutely true here. There is plenty of primal emotions while the songs themselves shift and morph to keep from being repetitious plagiaries of old cliches. While keeping plenty of those characteristics that the foundations of Metal were built upon, this feels authentic and not like a cheap parody of the greats. Slower moments add some monolithic groove with the hard-hitting drums giving more than enough backbone to the epic riffing and savage vocals. The sense of dynamics here is probably the biggest strength of Barbarian who clearly understand to near-perfection how to make an exciting and gripping track and, by extension, album. Flowing from idea to idea, track to track, everything clearly has its rightful place and is full of intent. This really carries into the listening experience rather than throwing us some weak compilation of ideas, this marches to us with purpose.

As things draw on, we hear the nuanced complexities meet simple, raw and classic methods to give us the best of both pure Heavy Metal and its various subgenera, which are all in Barbarian’s musical arsenal. In their own words, this is “Regressive Metal” and “A Feast For The Beast”, promises they deliver upon as every track feels carefully written and equally intricately placed into the greater framework of the record which has such a cinematic and atmospheric flows while being packed with adrenaline and force. Though there is still plenty of those magnificent dynamics and variations I have talked about before, the album really grows in ferocity to a peak of pure malice wherein the last couple of songs seem utterly feral. Like the moment after battle where only carnage and decay is left in the wake of the ravenous beast that is death. The only solution? Rewind, and experience it all over again.

Barbarian return with a momentous new opus of absolutely epic Heavy Metal. Old school and yet forging forward with their crushing sound. A quest you simply cannot miss.