Prezir are relatively new to the metal community, formed in 2016, with their name translating to the literal meaning of ‘Contempt’ in Serbian. When thinking of death metal juggernauts, Milwaukee isn’t one of your classic destinations to spawn a ravenous, dirty, death metal outfit, but this may be just the catalyst for many more to follow.
‘As Rats Devour Lions’ is the opening title track and it is monstrous and deafening in its make-up. The vocals are malevolent and dark with the melodies being of a fresh and crisp presentation. The band start with a speedy tempo and they don’t let up before the end of the track has beaten you and set you up for a marathon of brutality and maniacal battering to follow. The song progresses throughout, and the vocals are built into the backbone as short jabs rather than long lingering bodies of work. The guitars round off the track nicely and show us how talented and accomplished the fret work truly is
‘Ideologue Alchemy’ continues the beast and again expresses the beautiful dark art vocals as well as the melody of the guitars entwining with the core of this usurper. The guitars really take up the helm and become technical in their deliverance, and everything then digs deeper, including the vocals which now show a different angle to their structure. But just when you think the song can’t get any more technical, they throw in a guitar solo and don’t show any glimmer of the track slowing.
They then immerse you into ‘Dar al-Harb’ which has a definite thrash element to the feel. There is an undercurrent of a death personality, lying deep below the thrash foundations that they have now laid down and Djordjevic’s vocals become even more guttural and harassing than ever before,
The album then continues in the same vain throughout and they have built in definite shades of technical death metal, with an aura of thrash mixed in to create the monster that lies before us, with ‘Serpents In The House Of Ra’ being a definite stand out highlight on the album for me
These bruisers are definite rough diamonds in the sand waiting for more than a select few in the know to discover them. They will just take a little polishing to enable them to join the illustrious likes of death metal kings such as Nile, Morbid Angel and Destroyer 666, but I urge any fan of the death metal genre to give this a try because you really don’t want to let this one get away
(8/10 Phil Pountney)
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