Sword of Justice

Back in the 80s in England you had to be influenced by Venom and the traditional metal because they were the principal genres for importance and success. These Deathwish, in fact follow more or less the traces of those groups with a heavier dosage of thrash/speed metal in their sound to be faster and more vicious.

The production is a bit low in the sounds but perfect when concerns the audibility of each instruments. It’s the classic 80s style demo production with the classic speed/thrash metal genre and that’s great! The band is incredibly compact and fast in the title track. “Exorcist” is really gloom and ritualistic with a sort of Hellhammer mid paced patterns, simple, open chords riffs and obscure atmospheres. The singer often makes high pitched screams that are not too exaggerated or too in NWOBHM style, but quite rough and evil and the use of some black mass chorus makes the whole matter even more primordial.

The third and last “Only Dreaming” begins with an arpeggio with some glooms keyboards in the background. This time the vocals, in this part, are more melodic and heavy metal inspired. The following part is Black Sabbath oriented with doom tempos and screams. The atmosphere is ritualistic but has something more melodic than the other tracks and sometimes reminded me the early Death SS for the style.

All in all, an excellent start made of great songs with different influences in them but bound together by a mature songwriting and a heavy dose of malignance. Great thrash/speed Venom/Hellhammer worshipper 80s metal.