Mental Derangment

This Bulgarian bunch sprang up from the north/western city of Vratsa in the late-80’s, and the 2-track “Holocaust” demo showed their predilections for the good old thrash spiced with the odd more technical hook. A promising beginning that had its distinct, albeit not without its surprising twists sequel in the form of the album reviewed here.

A considerable upgrade has been witnessed on nearly every front, though, the delivery having become more intricate with a hefty pinch of death metal inserted, the final result quite close to the lofty feats of Pestilence on “Testimony of the Ancients” and Death on “Spiritual Healing” and “Human”, the vocals also having moved up the aggression scale now resembling the early shouty grunts of Chuck Schuldiner (R.I.P.). Said description is nicely consolidated by the infernal heavy technicality of “Intorelable Life” and the immaculate Death-esque shreds on “Shadow of The Guild”, with “The Gate/Chains of Society” providing an early culmination with its serpentine rhythmic structure and the elusive keyboard presence, a true masterpiece of technical/progressive death/thrash.

However, said formula stops being the leading one after this eye-opener, and the album takes a not very expected direction towards other territories in the second half, the journey spearheaded by the cover of Venom’s “Black Metal”, performed faster with an overt speed metal flair, with the vocalist trying to adjust his brutal timbre to the friendlier tone of the music. More surprises later with the doomy jumpy groovisms on “Go Away” and the orchestral ambience on the instrumental “Dreams”, the opus shifting further away from its superior beginnings until “Holocaust”, a cut already heard on the demo, brings things back to normal with its marginally more orthodox headbanging thrashisms, laying the foundations for “Return of the Death”, a very fittingly-titled number by the way as the death metal histrionics are brought back for a thrilling Death-esque ride with plenty of melodic hooks also provided to make this roller-coaster a more pleasant one.

The initially chosen course inevitably shows up at the end to ensure the intriguing finale, and although the guys lose focus at some stage with material obviously recorded before or after the core one, more or less intentionally thrown in here, this effort definitely clings more on the positive side with the expert musicianship displayed for a larger portion of the time. Half of the line-up was also involved in another formation, Kontakt, at around the same time the style more conventional classic thrash/death with the same format (a demo + a full-length) applied. And that was it, a few more sparkles of insanity and dexterity populating the Balkan music canvas, flickering in and out of existence in defiance to the ruling groovy/industrial forces, destined to remain a deep underground, “for devoted excavators only”, phenomenon.