Bestial Devastation

According to the liner notes, Bestial Devastation was recorded in two days in another shitty Belo Horizonte studio. So how did this sound better than the LP? In all seriousness, this album is about the same as Morbid Visions except with better production, of course.

The production really made the drums sound vicious as hell, the guitar tone is particularly sweet, after all this is Brazil 1986. Back then nobody in Brazil knew how to produce metal (as evidenced by the LP). The vocals are very echo-y which makes it really weird. The bass...well I think it's there, I'm pretty sure I heard some bass runs now and then. As with my Morbid Visions review, Paulo's bass playing isn't that interesting but eh.

The songs are also the proto-Schizophrenia/Beneath the Remains-styled-songs the LP would show and a lot of the riffs are used again in the LP. The drums are really awkward in "Antichrist", Igor said he didn't use the bass drums (to be precise, he said he didn't use kicks) so it's strange. The demo version of "Necromancer" is also included and, again, has better production than Morbid Visions. What is wrong with the studio/engineers when they recorded Morbid Visions (according to the liner notes, they used different studios for the demo, the EP and the LP)? "Anticop" is hilarious, Max really brings it home every time he says "Stick the gun/Up your ASS!!" and "FUCK THA POLICE!!" but the drumming is way better than "Antichrist". I could really do without the "scary-crap-from-hell" intro, although the burp-growl is hilarious, especially when he says "...Sathanas invoke to destroys!! Bestial Devastation!!!"

Conclusion: Buy the re-release. It's worth it. This here is classic death/thrash all the way from Belo Horizonte. (In the liner pictures, the band wore makeup at one point that can be considered proto-corpsepaint. Probably Wagner's doing.)