Shit week, shit job (but , yeah, at least it is a job I know) and Vesen seem just the ticket: This is some unleashed rage and then some. Short opener ‘The Threat’ is an oddly muffled bit of bestial thrashing black metal more like an intro before the title track kicks me in the head. Clear, ripping and loud it comes up all Aura Noir and Mongo Ninja in barroom brawl. Seriously black thrash with the general distaste for humanity that Destroyer 666 show but with a thick muscle of street punk punching you repeatedly in the head. There is not even half a pause before the vicious, dark riffing brilliance of ‘Billions’ drills even deeper. Migraine inducing hateful brilliance.

Subtlety is in short supply here, but now on their fourth full length and from a band who released an album entitled ‘Desperate Mindless Aggression’ if you want power ballads I suggest you follow the blood trail to the door. This is intensity from start to finish. There is a self-destructive nature on display not dissimilar to Bestial Mockery, and in common also is the way the lyrics, though very much in the realm of black metal in attitude and hate have a dirt under the fingernails, blood on the filthy carpet, poison in the ragged cuts in real life flesh variety. There is a dilapidated tenement atmosphere and a pointed, harsh reality to songs such as ‘We Walk Alone’ that adds a bleak modern edge to it all.

Pace is generally mid paced to full tilt, and with songs around the four to five minute mark it could begin to deaden the senses but the band know how to drive this thing to keep it interesting. They can use the brakes but mostly to make the tyres squeal a bit more. At times, like ‘Triumph’, the Destroyer 666 template is maybe used a little too much but then it is still a fine song and straight after we get the long ‘Fear Of Skin’ with its spirit dragging, unsettling guitar tones, hard bass and excellent drumming pattern. They close with ‘Stabber’, a very punk road drill bit of violence that kind of makes you feel like a shower afterwards.

Not wildly original maybe, but wildly vicious, accomplished and convincing punked up blackthrash. Angry and frustrated? Please enter by the door marked catharsis.

(8/10 Gizmo)

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