Confession of Blasphemer

I only found out about these lads about four years ago which makes them the last discovered buried treasure for me on Russian soil. I may have come across them earlier, but since their name is quite derivative and recalls a bunch of other acts from around the world, I may have passed them by with clear conscience. Well, I had made a mistake if I had skipped them earlier as this is one of the better death/thrash metal practitioners the Big Country had produced during the 90’s. The guys appeared at the right time, at the dawn of the decade, when thrash was the talk of the day all around Russia, and took part in the foundation of a burgeoning scene that kept the groovy/aggro/alternative vogues at bay at least till the middle of the 90’s.

The debut was a combination of power, speed and thrash placing the guys in the vicinity of veterans like Kruiz, Master and Shah, but the EP made things way more interesting by introducing both more aggressive deathy and more technical elements, a direction the band pursue with all the passion on the album reviewed here. The title-track is a furious technical death metal shredder with both intelligent and fierce riffs taking turns, with a few more quirky rhythms breaking the brutal stride, the only unmitigated flaw being the rough unrehearsed shouty death metal vocals. “Cost of Blind Belief” brings back the thrash with bouncy belligerent guitars, a more linear headbanger with a couple of more interesting melodic variations. “Into the Other Worlds” is a dizzying technicaller the band death/thrashing with gusto recalling mid-period Messiah save for the isolated blast-beating additives; and “Creator’s Unholy Knife” follows the same path elaborating the situation with stylized intricate riff-formulas those echoing moments from the Atheist textbooks. “To the End of Suffering” slows down introducing heavy officiant stomps, but the clever intriguing decisions keep coming accompanied by morose minimalistic doomy strokes. “Eyes of Eternity” thrashes harder with a few less ordinary embellishments bordering on surreal Voivod-isms adding more to the not very conventional character of this recording.

The band were clearly aiming at the technical/progressive sector of the genre where their compatriots Aspid, Koma, Valkyria, End Zone and Odium resided, but the sloppy sound quality and the couple of more bashing musical configurations were an indication that the guys had some room for improvement on the potential future instalments. Alas, they disappeared soon after that leaving a certain number of fans a bit confused about their sincere, but kind of incomplete “confessions”.