Tales of Hate, Lust and Chaos

Lately I have seen a lot of Old School Death Metal fans discussing online about new albums by bands like Lik, Demonical or Ribspreader. As much as I enjoy all of those as well one of my personal greatest finds of 2018 has to be “Tales of Hate, Lust and Chaos” by an unknown Peruvian (!) band called Fervent Hate. Never having heard of this guys before this is their second full length album following their 2013’s release “Road to Insanity”. Discovering new music online is bringing back some memories of my teenage days when I spent a lot of time in small shops searching for stuff I never heard of before.

To keep it short: This is Death Metal at its absolute finest. Ten face-meltingly awesome tracks to get your head banging and your blood rushing, this is an absolutely relentless album that doesn’t give you time to catch your breath as the band powers through each song. Every song has just as much energy and momentum as the last and the songs feature some excellent solos and powerful vocals throughout.

There is enough variation with Fervent Hate mixing melodic lead guitars, dark and moody parts and even some lighter moments. For some songs they wrote hooks that would not be out of place on a Hard Rock album or even implement bluesy elements. While the music never gets cheesy each song is catchy and offers a memorable main riff. Some of the slower songs create a brooding and slightly uneasy atmosphere bringing the underground feeling we all know and love.

Overall Fervent Hate have one aim and that is to honor and return to the golden age of classic Old School Death Metal. Buzz-Saw guitars, D-Beat rhythms and beastly low growls are the traditional reference points to the classic past. From the opening assault of “Evil Twins” the album rips out of the speakers. The great thing about this song and the whole album is that nothing is done to excess.

There are some tempo-shifting swings between all the chunky riffing and the drummer is doing a great job setting the tempo and providing some surprise elements and fills while the two guitarists impress with short and long solos. Technically this is very solid but the real star of the show is always the song itself. These days a lot of bands focus too much on brutality and showing their technical abilities for my taste. While that might be interesting enough for other musicians passive fans like myself often are overwhelmed by that kind of stuff. I prefer simpler songs with a stringent structure that still have enough meat to not get boring after the first listen. And Fervent Hate are delivering exactly that.

To be honest many of the riffs and ideas have been heard in another form before but this does not matter in the overall enjoyment and well created wall of addictive sound. Fervent Hate have created their own brand of Swedish Death Metal taking elements from the classic Entombed records as well as from their “Wolverine Blues” era mixing those ingredients together to deliver something familiar and tasty.

The production is as Swedish as it can be and it is obvious that those famous HM2 pedals found their way from Stockholm to Peru.
After having listened to the album for the first time it did not come as a surprise to see that the mixing and mastering has been done by Dan Swanö in the famous Unisound Studios. This means that production-wise there are no surprises.

You can discuss about the scene’s constant retreading and lack of progression. Or you can go out, get “Tales of Hate, Lust and Chaos” and bang your head.