Atheist Crusade

Technical thrash metal is sort of a niche sector, one hardly emphasized by the post-2000 wave of thrash upstarts who in one fell swoop brought attention back to the style and muddied the waters with average Exodus lampooning and the equivalent of warm, off-brand beer with crossover-inflected, impotent posturing like Municipal Waste and to a lesser extent, Lich King. I hate most of those bands, and to be frank I don't have much of an affinity for technical thrash, I know that Annihilator is occasionally branded with such a tag, but they haven't been truly relevant in a thrash sense for nearly thirty years. This brings us to Immaculate's Atheist Crusade. Coming from Sweden of all places, this is the sonic equivalent to an injection of crack cocaine, straight to the dome and manic as all get out.

So fans of Toxik, Watchtower, Xentrix and to a far lesser extent Voivod should find this record a very comfortable listen. Well, as comfortable as music this ball-bustingly upbeat and spastic can be. Riffs come blisteringly fast, splayed out by the slingshot picking hands of Ghanime and Vukovic. As a mash-up of aesthetics that draw from early Overkill like Feel the Fire and borderline progressive acts that stuff as many stuttering riffs as possible in a song just to see where it ends up, Atheist Crusade feels extremely ripe and shrewd in its bloodletting. Production is decidedly sterile, tunnelling straight through expectations with cleaving precision befitting of tech thrash's rigid demeanour. The one parallel I can safely draw to Annihilator is this digital, antiseptic-sounding guitar tone that reminds me of Waking the Fury. I am also reminded of Overkill's Under the Influence, only with a more prominent drum sound.

Songs are expansive on the whole, allowing plenty of breathing room for the riffs to cook something mean. Oscar Moritz does his best octopus impersonation behind the drum kit, scatting disparage beats and multifarious fills all over this thing, lending a structural framework over which the riffs blow their technical load. Leads are obtuse and Martian sounding as well, like on the relentless "Sanity's Eclipse / Steel of the Missionary." Structurally, there are very minor gaps between these songs stylistically, but the shorter cuts are true armor-piercing rounds of thrash/speed ballistics, like the rabid, ADHD drive of "Thrash Metal Avenger." The vocals go from searing highs redolent of Ced Forsberg from Rocka Rollas, Breitenhold etc. to gruff yowling. Eronen interjects enough verisimilitude into his performance to keep affairs engaging even if the riffs aren't totally your bag.

Atheist Crusade is a shockingly good sophomore outing, featuring some of the most precise and top-gear riffage I've heard this year. Immaculate never seem to reach the bottom of their bag of tricks, delivering all killer and no filler. The closer "Gutterthrash" is just insane, methodical and pummeling all at once. I would have liked to see more epic touches, because the band nails the Fates Warning cover out of the park. Atheist Crusade is a modern classic in the field of technical thrash/speed metal. This shouldn't be missed.