Apex Terror

I got into metal about the same time that I lost interest in Warhammer 40,000. When I first got into WH40K in the 90s, I think Warhammer Records was still in existence. As a result metal and WH40K are slightly related in my mind and I am always interested in listening to Warhammer themed bands. I haven't read the lyrics to this album, so I don't know how explicitly they deal with this theme, but it's certainly strongly present on their more recent album, Xeno Kaos.

This is album is a nice mix of death metal, black metal and thrash. The basic approach is death metal with a lot of chugging, but some of the vocals have more of a black metal feel, as does some of the tremolo guitar. Some of the riffing also feels rather thrashy. The pace of the music is rather slow, a long sustained bombardment, rather than a blast of relentless aggression. I feel slightly reminded of Bolt Thrower's album 'Honour Valour Pride,' which had the same militaristic mood. The track Xeno is a sort of ambient instrumental, providing some very alien sounding noise, a slightly cinematic interlude which provides a welcome change of pace and added atmosphere. It might have been nice to have a few more of such ambient moments. The interlude is followed by the song 'Drone Killing,' which opens with an onslaught of blastbeats that contrasts with the rather more pedestrian pace of the first half of the album. The drumming on the album feels very precise and mechanical, adding to the generally menacing vibe of this release.

The production feels very cold and mechanical. There is not much in their sound here that can be called industrial, though they were going through that phase on Kinetic Zero, but it definitely evokes the bleak futuristic world of Warhammer 40,000. This is not remarkable music, but it is well polished and solid quality.