The Force

“…the fires are burning deep down in hell, the warlords are ready to rise…”

Having been somewhat hard on their debut and always hoping a band improves their wares if only to give me something else enjoyable to listen to, I looked upon The Force with three hopes in mind: 1) with their inaugural release out of the way, the band troubled less over their image and dipped into the songwriting till with more than a Dixie Cup, 2) the vocal dues changed hands, changed lanes, changed underwear, or just changed something about them, and 3) that too much of PFH’s production’s bulky, stomach-rumbling gruel hadn’t been wiped away.

Hey look, Paul Mahoney dropped out of the dual role spotlight. Yeah, perhaps the band had seen the error of his verbally pedestrian ways or he just didn’t feel like flinging their average lyrics around anymore, but either way the beige-voiced bassist surrendered his shoes to the fandangle of Sy Keeler, a voxman with some (i.e. more) charismatic demand, a frontman bitter and frothy enough to sound leathery tough, yet is often lyrically legible, and with a bevy of second (well, maybe third) tier Araya-ish wails doubles Mahoney’s range. Actually, Keeler can be found careening into semi-soprano territory quite a bit - sometimes clean, sometimes raggedly screeched in a distant vein of Artillery’s Flemming Ronsdorf on the song “Terror Squad”, and of course is hardly confusable with the squeaky gleam of the pre-’84 days.

With a face full of “Let There be Death” this seven-songer charges, easily one of their best that, in lieu of their inky but rather blanched debut, finally coerces songwriting clarity to gel with deadly thrash force. While not as murky or bottom-heavy, The Force’s production, knobbed by Roy Rowland over at Terminal Studios, actually proves exceptionally stringent in its still unadulterated yet more serrated din, and along with the album’s initial gale instigates mongers like “Fight With the Beast”, “Thrash till the Death”, and gong n’ stratospheric synths-introed “Flame of the Antichrist” to flail like the shredders they are. Plus the band (or should I say lead guitarist Nige Rockett, who penned just about every molecule of this lp) has discovered realms slightly more intricate and melodious without venturing into the progressive. Linearly methodical “Demoniac”, mucho traditional “Metal Forces”, and the near end of “Contract in Blood” unfold evidence that (more) possible cues have been taken from Destruction (Infernal Overkill-era, not Eternal Devastation, considering the date), debut-time Kreator, perhaps wordless extravaganzas in the vein of Metallica’s “The Call of Ktulu”, and even traditionally-inspired groups like Helstar.

Things are a little better lyrically, still marching toward Hell Possessed-like, but with a little flair in their step now.

Not quite coincidentally, how the sound on these slabs war against each other is right in their titles. While the dirtier, overcast anti-drama of Power From Hell should indeed tread thigh-deep in the murk of the underworld, the songs on The Force grip a creative balance that remain very conscious of their baneful, grunt roots while snooping around a multi-planed stretch of land they’ve never seen in the yards of Venom or Seven Churches.