Circle of Darkness

The band is way young and already kicking ass! Fresh riffs and solid sound these guys put together some killer thrash metal. The whole album is super-charged. I was really impressed with their musicianship. They really are in their own with their sound. The vocals are petty hoarse and sound well intertwined with the guitars. Plus, the sound quality is top notch. The guitars are pinnacle to the album. I like them the most out of the whole album. They really know how to pack a punch to this one. The tempos vary but are necessary to a versatile release. This band formed pretty recently to have something like this dominating.

The sound quality here is top notch and the guitars are pretty original sounding and well thought out. The vocals make this release sound heavier. But still the guitars are quite thrash-filled. The leads are pretty good as well. Usually, newer bands can't hack it the first time around on lead but Plague Years disproves my theory. And the songwriting is top notch as well. One of the best releases of this year in the thrash metal category! I was blown away when I heard this. They're anything but amateurs. The only thing that I didn't like as much were to voice efforts. They sound a little like Warbringer but not completely. That's my only beef.

The production sound and recording was immaculate. I liked this from start to finish. It was filled with energy! And the riffs were pretty original to say the least. I really liked this album a lot. They have so much to offer. I hope that they stick around for a long time. The music like I said was the highlight to this release. It just blew me away hands down. The musicianship was top notch. This band is way likable to any metal fan, they would have to hear this to maybe in agreement with. They only reason like I said the drawback were the vocals. They were too hoarse for my taste. But otherwise, at least they fit with the sound.

I heard this first on digital and then I was so impressed with it that I bought it on Amazon. I'm an old timer that still collects CD's. But that doesn't make me like metal any less. So yeah, check out some videos on YouTube. They have some official videos on there that's when I first heard them. I made sure first to have the digital copy to hear the whole album and I liked it enough to buy it. The whole thing is good from start to finish. Brutal vocals, wicked rhythms, solid drum beats and terrific recording quality. I will continue to like this even when I wear the album out! Get to hearing this!

The rough, post-industrial landscape of Detroit would seem a fertile breeding ground for the sort of ugly death thrashing mayhem that came roaring out of 1980s Chicago courtesy of trailblazer Paul Speckmann, but until fairly recently the pickings have been fairly slim in said locale. To be fair, the German-influenced extreme thrashers Nocturnal Fear got out pretty far ahead of the New Wave Of Thrash Metal and fielded a number of top notch studio offerings over the span of about a decade, but prior to the past 20 years it was rare to encounter any thrash metal in the Motor City beyond a smattering of demos. This unfortunate state appears to be changing of late with a number of up and comer acts such as Hate Unbound and the ascendant death/thrashers Plague Years carving out a groovy, hard-hitting niche within the broader Midwestern sound.

For their part, the de facto quintet that is Plague Years (they’ve relied on exclusively live musicians to fill the 2nd guitar slot for the past couple years) has been on a consistent streak, releasing a solid eponymous EP and their debut LP Unholy Infestation in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The resulting sound exhibited on these previous studio outings could be best described as a compromise between old school and modern death/thrash, often shifting between influences reaching as far back as the late 80s and a more recent hodgepodge of groove metal and death ‘n’ roll elements within singular songs, and it returns in full force on their sophomore go-around Circle Of Darkness. It has a distinctly familiar sound to anyone in the know about the ongoing career of Wisconsin’s own Jungle Rot, as well as the older and less brutal styling of Master, which makes a strong degree of sense given the geographical proximity of both bands to Michigan.

Despite striking the ears with a blatantly modern production sound and having some fairly clear hardcore elements smacking the listener right upside the head, there are times where these songs almost sound like they could have been written back in the early 1990s. The pulsating thrash riffing mayhem of “Witness Hell” and title track “Circle Of Darkness” could almost be pure retreads of seminal offerings out of the Scott Burns days of Cancer and Sepultura minus the occasional breakdown into groovier territory, and even though vocalist Tim Englehardt has more of a hardcore shtick going to his grunts and yells, he’ll occasionally morph into a full blown throwback to that classic Schuldiner growl from the days of Death’s Leprosy. Likewise, the strategic employment of creepy keyboard lines and dreary atmospheric passages on pounding slower and longer offerings like “Eternal Fire” and “Urge To Kill” showcase more of a 1990-92 inclination than one might expect from a modern act.

If there is one consequential element in this collective fold that truly gives this band’s sound more of a retro fell, it would be the work of guitarist Eric Lauder, who pulls both rhythm and lead duty in the studio. The riff work that he brings to the table exudes a busier mode of thrashing that is as much indicative of a vintage Bay Area sound as it is those occasional interludes into the slower stomping ground of Entombed and occasional flourishes of Exhorder, particularly in the case of the cruising fury of “Nrftl” and the riveting opener “Play The Victim”. But the signature, Slayer-influence lead guitar work that he brings to the party is where things really get interesting, as each song on here is peppered with short to semi-long passages of chaotic shredding that screams 1990s death/thrash like it’s going out of style yet again. There isn’t a song on here that doesn’t benefit from a well placed whammy bar dive or flurry of notes, though the highlight would have to be “Paradox Of Death”, specifically for the brilliant intro passage that sounds like a direct homage to South Of Heaven.

While some have been continuing to write eulogies for the still ongoing thrash revival since the early 2010s, albums like these are the ones that teach all the naysayers that the style can be kept fresh while still cleaving to its early roots. It definitely comes with a strong crossover element along with the vintage death/thrash trappings that will likely appeal heavily to fans of Power Trip (R.I.P. Riley Gale) and Ringworm, but its chief audience will likely be old school death/thrash enthusiasts who have continued to gorge themselves on the various projects helmed by Paul Speckmann and Rogga Johansson. It doesn’t fall completely into any one of the aforementioned camps, but it definitely leans a tad closer to the old school approach, particularly when compared to fellow Detroiters Hate Unbound. In a scene where one either goes retro or modern, it doesn’t necessarily amount to having your cake and eating it too by having both.

Originally written for Sonic Perspectives (www.sonicperspectives.com)