Devil's Force

Average-ish raw necrostuffs, when all is said and done. Sort of an afterthought in the world of black-speed-thrash... old Destruction and Sodom, this kinda tries to be, but when all is said and done, isn't quite as cool. Also, old Sepultura, but sometimes their main influence seems to be just as noisy and sloppy as possible, and yet they DON'T pull it off with as much conviction as, say, Hellhammer or even that old Mayhem tape. When all is said and done, this sounds like a drunken Desaster rehearsal.

The other problem... other than the occasional really cool riff, the songs sound basically all the same. Lots of squealing guitars, and fast sections, with the occasional melodic counterpoint riff, or sometimes a really heavy thrash riff. For example, "Deathstrike from Hell" is total Darkness Descends worship, reminiscent of the headbanging intro to the title track. Then, The Final Slaughter is kinda cool but falls into a bit of a trap with the chorus being just "final! slaughter! final slaughter!" in a pretty uninspired manner.

That said, there's some cool moments if you listen carefully. The solo around 2.20 of Satanic Mass is subtle but well done - reminiscent of Metal Church's Beyond the Black - and stands out from the random noisy riffage behind it. Also, the rhythm guitar tone is decent, but the playing is very very sloppy. So how is this different from Hellhammer? Hellhammer is sloppy too, but discernable, even if the riff is totally off key. In this, the whole thing is kind of a mash.

Highlights? The album gets worse as it goes on - the only thing I can stand to listen to often and repeatedly is Final Slaughter. The rest is just what happens when you run out of ideas. Put all the great moments of the rest of the album into one song and you have TWO great songs. It's really not BAD, and if you like your stuff raw, you'll eventually get around to putting this in your collection, but it's just not GOOD either.