Pactum

When I recently encountered this EP, I was intrigued by the cover art, because I had never heard of this band before. After some investigating, it turned out to a band operating in the realms of black/thrash metal, and my first thought was that we have enough of those these last 10 years or so. Then it turned out that this was a release from 1989, predating even the whole Norwegian black metal boom of the early 90's. All of the sudden, that made it a lot more interesting.

As is tradition with most of those early blackened metal acts from the 80's, the sound is pretty much arse. The overall sonic picture is grainy and has that whole 'recorded on a dictaphone stuck in a cow's butt' vibe hanging over it. The balance is way off, with the vocals dominating the majority of the music on offer, shoving most of the guitars in the background, with what remains of the drums being limited to a boxy sounding snare drum and a vaguely humming cymbal. This is a sound as raw as fresh roadkill, without any productional frills added whatsoever, but at the same time it does not really hinder the flow of the songs themselves. Despite being far from perfect in any sense, I can get behind this a 100%. This is some true old school underground style extreme metal, simply oozing unhinged atmosphere everywhere.

In style, Pactum's music bears traces of acts like Germany's Minotaur, NME, Hungary's Tormentor, Celtic Frost, Necrodeath and early Bathory, as well as the 80's South American underground scene with bands like Sepultura and Mutilator, without sounding exactly like either one of them. The vomitous vocals sound cavernous as all hell, insanely barking over the grainy guitar riffing and pounding percussion. There are some excellent guitar solo's to be heard, like in opener "Estrago vaginal", and overall playing is actually pretty good, with some decent riffing on offer throughout. The songs themselves are surprisingly varied and well thought-out, fusing midtempo sections with battering velocity, and even a dab of sparse twisted melody. This acidic concoction is brought with an almost punk-ish energy at times, making me suspect that the band also has had a slight influence of bands like early D.R.I. and Italy's Schizo. An interesting package on offer, indeed.

Fused together, the abrasive soundmix actually works pretty well with the black thrashing style Pactum has on offer. By no means this is an optimal sound, but the music does not lose its edge in any way. For the more discriminating listener this is a nightmare come true, but for those firmly entrenched in underground extremity, this is probably just another pleasant day on the job. It is certainly an interesting little ditty for those curious about the early roots of black metal.

Or at least for me it is.