No Worlds… is the second album by underground Greek death metal stalwarts Resurgency, and a mighty album it is indeed. Although Athens is a pretty sunny place most of the time, from listening to this album I would suspect that wherever Resurgency are based in the Greek capital, it must be a place of foul, grim darkness and torment!
I’ve listened to many `Old-School Death Metal’ albums in my time; many of them attempt very obviously and self-consciously to be as `old-school’ as possible, with varying degrees of success. No such pretentions here; you can tell that Resurgency play Death Metal as they feel it, without trying to be like this or that. It certainly comes across as totally authentic and raw.
As for the music, the first words that leapt into my brain when I heard the first track on the CD were `dark, boiling rage’. I will try not to overuse those words during this review, but that exact thought keeps coming to me time and time again. Listening to this album is like slamming an adrenaline shot into your own chest, and it totally takes me back to those times I first heard the classic Death metal bands, and the hairs on the back of neck stood on end.
John’s vocals are pure, bestial rage – he growls, snarls and emits guttural roars like a raging beast. Truly classic death metal vocals, which really get the blood pumping rather than forcing people to laugh (as some old death metal did). The vocals do remind me a little of Kam Lee from Massacre, but less artificial. They are certainly as dark, dramatic and completely over-the-top as the vocals on that seminal Massacre album `Dawn of Eternity’. There is also a touch of classic Barney from Napalm Death, such is the boiling rage that comes across.
The riffs mostly tend to be frantically fast-picked single notes, creating some really fantastic, memorable riffs which ooze with menace and foreboding. Combined with the powerful drumming, which often breaks into high speed blasting, the effect is like being thrown into a concrete mixer with all your favourite classic American and Swedish Death Metal bands. Aside from being really furious and aggressive, there are enough hooks and awesome riffs to make the unprepared headbanger inflict serious cranial damage upon themselves (just check out one of my favourite tracks `Upset Sun In Shades Deforms’). Resurgency succeed in being both punishingly heavy and darkly atmospheric, not something that many death metal bands can pull off successfully. There are some gloriously excessive moments on this album; mental, tremolo-bar abusing guitar solos, hell-for-leather drumming, crawling, sinister single-note riffs, fantastically catchy riffs in each song and rhythms that really make you want to bang your head off.
The little information slip that I received with this CD described this album as being `highly recommended for fans of Morbid Angel and Deicide’. While that is undoubtedly true, as I can hear a large influence from both seminal acts, I can also hear the grim tinges of Swedish Death Metal in all the single note –riffing, the straight-ahead sensibilities of Vader, and a whole host of other little tweaks all of the band’s own making.
(7.5/10 Jon Butlin)
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