Legacy of Pain

So, while painstakingly untangling the mess that was my unplayable copy of Legacy of Pain with a pencil and a peculiar patience I’ve only ever tapped into while fixing nearly doomed cassettes, fond memories of what would be the follow-up to Hammer Witch’s finitely-pressed ’87 ep Return to Salem came helicoptering back to me, and to sweet relief many of the memories were confirmed during the tape’s uneasy, post-op run-through.

Whereas Return to Salem channeled predatory Leatherwolf-fanged power/thrash to nearly utmost specialty ratings, the band’s latest release, the first in four long years, the demo Legacy of Pain, summons an escalation in heaviness and aural violence that, if it were a conscious creature, would leave the rather distant self-financed ep probably a little intimidated.

Lots of things happened in the scene musically between ’87 and ’91. Many tried to ignore Unseen Terror, Napalm Death and Heresy-smelling filth as it began festering loads of popular pustules in and out of the UK, meanwhile by this time a large number of thrash acts began sacrificing portions of their adrenal glands to sweeten trade deals of aggression for progression on the open market. The most devastating blow to thrash metal, however, had to be death metal’s eventual global upheaval of the older style, when an ultimatum from this indelicate new guard was handed to its older sibling with a dead serious stare: procreate with death metal’s overwhelmingly brutish seed or simply perish into extinction.

Come ’91, many thrash bands flourished with this crossover. Unfortunately, all but the most popular and fan-heavy resistance found their careers either struggling to remain clear of the vanishing point or had already been vanquished. Hammer Witch’s superb, though now out-to-pasture powerthrash dented little at a time when it shoulda dented a lot, so I’ll bet it’s this logic that turned the tables on the old watchman once respected as the main defender and champion of extreme metal.

Agreeing to this ultimatum plunges Legacy of Pain into then-present lava pits of Demolition Hammer, Malevolent Creation and Hexx volatility - bands whose din wasn’t so wrapped in death influence that they lost track of thrash metal’s summit. Obviously formidable is the interaction’s result of intensifying all available synapses - aggression, velocity, ferocity, focus, lung delivery, etc. – which are gussied up further by the spit n’ polish of a vital production.

What this shouldn’t affect, at least not significantly, is a former thrash act’s songwriting consciousness, which is a facet Hammer Witch exhibit talent in still despite the disappearance of vocalist/guitarist Frankie Dee during the overlong interim between offerings. Bound to happen and surprised if it hadn’t, recruited is guitarist Darrin Kobetich, who seemingly without fear steps into the role which was quite demanding almost half a decade ago, however the vocal half of this old position’s challenge now rests upon bassist Wayne Abney, who prevails pretty wickedly with his untrained, dried-out strain. The overall songcraft of these eight tracks steers more straightforward than the six progressive romps on Return to Salem, however here they seem to successfully reinvent whatever’s found lacking by braving alternative landscapes, such as a narrow doom realm that almost literally haunts chambers of “The Ritual”, but because of its difficulty to be infused into their former style, it hadn’t previously been explored.

Like their accomplishment Return to Salem, Hammer Witch kill it here with this effectively up-dated rebound sound, one that brands Legacy of Pain a more hostile beast all the while remaining easy to distinguish from feet-first, death-or-else poster groups Sinister, Attomica, Pestilence and Pungent Stench