Relentless Night

Do all the bands that sign to Metal on Metal Records need an umlaut in their names? It seems almost a condition of being on the label, and Chainbreäker are no exception, shoehorning their extra metal street cred onto a fairly unpronounceable ‘ea’ sound. Still, at least this quartet are Austrian, so they have more right to use the symbol than most. My first dalliance with the thrashers begins right here with this second full-length released at Halloween last year and I’m currently pleased about what I hear. Rather than thrash directly in the manner of modern bands like Game Over and Gama Bomb, Chainbreäker mix in a little influence from both speed and black metal to sound more in line with dirty throwback artists like Toxic Holocaust, Children Of Technology, and Whipstriker. That brings a touch more unpredictable danger to their high-octane sound and forces me to accept Relentless Night as a slightly silly but fitting album title.

The way the band riff suits me just right, impulsively pushing the speedometer while attending to groove as well, alternating manic double-bass assaults with more chug-focused mid-tempo sections. That leaves songs like ‘Iron Grave’ and ‘The Axe’ exhibiting the kind of momentum that Sodom have lent to some crossover-leaning artists, whereby cutting pace arguably leads to the most destructive riffing of all thanks to bulkier sound and pure confidence exuding from both rhythms and raspy shrieked vocals. Across 9 songs, this technique gets plenty of use, while ‘A Prayer Down the Drain’ expands way past the 3 and a half minute average to cover chugging verses and sinister ringing chord suspense in greater quantities. That long cut eventually kicks into high gear after more than 4 minutes to attack religion first vocally and then with a searing lead and twin guitar melody line. It bears mentioning that the title track would possibly even fool some disciples of the Norwegian black thrash sound into worshipping at the altar of Chainbreäker, since it sounds just a mite more bloodthirsty in the vocals and riffs, charging ahead at constant levels of semi-insanity without any concessions to melody.

If I’m looking for any reason to find fault with Relentless Night, it’s because the album doesn’t feel relentless enough, nor dark enough to be called anything much beyond late evening. On the one hand, the rabid thrashing on offer becomes mixed with traditional heavy metal in most of the solos and a few melodic moments, reducing the potential for a listener to leave bruised and smiling; on the other hand, the album could have been even more fun with a higher dose of touch-in-cheek attitude and disregard for strict genre trappings, sort of how Witchery made a couple of blistering albums at the start of their career that were poised between Mercyful Fate, Aura Noir, and Skeletonwitch (the latter ignoring chronology). In regards to Chainbreäker, this sophomore effort aims more obviously for the thrash crowd looking for more speedy and occult methods to bang their heads, certainly not ruling the Austrians out of a large fanbase but also ensuring that the potential purposes for Relentless Night do not number so many. Still, an album to wreck your neck to after dark - there’s always room for one more of those.