Reversed Black Trinity

Bestial Raids is your average no-holds-barred black metal band. The band comes out of the newer wave of violent bullet studded sound inspired by bands like Blasphemy, Von, or Beherit. Second wave does not sound quite correct because the thrashy, lo-fi black metal sound never really waned. It continued from the late ‘80s and is still around today, if just under the radar.

The music reflects the spike and bullet toting, leather clad appearance of the band members. This band has nothing new to prove, but the sound is as savage and basic as any lover of this specific type of black metal could hope for. Bestial Raids takes off of a well-established black metal formula with a twinge of old school death metal thrown in, namely on the track “Thrones of Satanas.” Bestial Raids’ riffs are simplistic but they get the job done. They often only consist of three to five chords and that works well for the basic barbarism sound.

The sloppy synchronization of the guitars and drums gives the music more character than it detracts. Guitar tones are satisfyingly low and vicious with riffs transitioning between obscure sounding tremolo picking (akin to Black Witchery) and trudging death metal-esque power chord riffs (akin to early punk inspired death metal). The drumming is almost exclusively blast beats, not uncommon for this niche of black metal; simple and barbaric. The vocals are made up of mostly mid-ranged shrieks and barks with the occasional low growl thrown in to ‘harmonize.’

Reversed Black Trinity’s production is just as you would expect for album of this genre and is one of its greatest strengths. It is appropriately shitty: quite lo-fi but you can still hear what’s going on. Too often this type of production just garbles the actual music (e.g. early Krieg, Black Witchery). Bestial Raids did it right this time with the production. It gives the atmosphere of a savage DIY project but doesn't in any way detract from the actual music. This Polish trio doesn't fuck around. Overall, Reversed Black Trinity is nothing write home about, but an awesome album to drink beer and bang your head to. Pick it up if you find a copy in your local record shop.