Primitive Age

Bat is a side-project of neo crossover thrasher Ryan Waste, more known for his main band Municipal Waste. He is joined by Nick Polous, also a recent addition to Municipal Waste, as well as his work for the traditional metal act Volture; and legendary crossover drummer Felix Griffin, who performed on most of D.R.I's greatest albums. Needless to say, Bat is made of an impressive line-up and fortunately, this translates to an equally impressive debut from the trio.

Bat play a vicious, chunky slab of speed punk, riffing along the lines of bands like Inepsy, Midnight and Speedwolf. There's a good amount of variety on display here, songs like "Bat" and "Rule of the Beast" are your typical blazers, riffing on the same song structures Venom and Slayer left to the world of black speed many eons ago. Songs such as "Total Wreckage" and "Code Rude" are slower and more sinister in their approach, even bluesy to some degree and the latter of the two songs reminds me of Canada's Slaughter a lot.

The drums are tight and add much to this release, especially on tracks like "Primitive Age" and "Total Wreckage" that latter of which has a brutal breakdown towards the end of the song, leaving your skull smashed and pulped. I would say the guitar work on the other hand, whilst functional and competent, are riffs we've all heard a million times before. The track "Bat" for example, is clearly riffing on Venom's "Heavens on Fire", which whilst entertaining to listen too, I wish Polous had played around with it further and made it more his own. I would same the same of the basslines, recycling blueprints left by warbass aficionados Lemmy and Cronos, but hey, if there are any better bands to imitate, let me know because you can't really do better than Venom and Motorhead.

Waste's vocal style is less a black thrashing rasp and more of a raw, nasty street punk affair, which works perfectly with Bat's aesthetic and sound. The vocal tracks sit quite high up in the mix and style of vocals means it's quite easy to make out the lyrics without having to read through them, which is great because the lyrics are fun, if not cliche, to listen too.

"Beware of the BAT, when night falls all around, face the bite, fear for your life, wings of death, will strike you down, chiroptera after dark, your blood the final mark, victims screaming out in pain, in the blackness BAT will reign!"

Like I said, fun, poser slaying lyrics that aren't breaking any new ground but are well crafted and a joy to sing along to in between banging your head and breaking your neck. If you're looking for something philosophical, arcane and grim, look elsewhere, Bat is about kicking arse and taking names as it flies off into the night with your skull between its bloody fangs.