Devil's Whorehouse

Power From Hell are a Brazilian heavy metal outfit, with their most recent record Devil’s Whorehouse hitting the scene back in early 2016. This is basically a hybrid made up of harsh and sharp speed metal riffs that are shadowed with a blackened tinge, with throaty shrieks making up the vocals. Present are a lot of attitudes that reflect punk rock not only in the way the lyrics are delivered, but the drum beats give this vibe as well.

Unfortunately, there is little to no variance here. Obviously, the vocals aren’t really meant to be crystal clear, but there is no sense of real rhythm or reason to want to follow them. The riffwork does offer an atmosphere meant to fit the mood for those seeking a setting fitting for horror and darkness, and the aggression makes the guitar passages play off as a bit more mean. On the other hand, they don’t really go anywhere; there’s very little to offer in the realm of solos, melody, or strong songwriting. To add insult to injury, the drums basically use the exact same pattern the entire time, only further making this disc seem as one sided as possible.

Another thing that doesn’t help is that even though it’s clearly meant to have a rough atmosphere, there are still obvious signs of touch ups done, butting heads with the thickness in the air. A lot of this sounds rather robotic and comes off as run-of-the-mill. Truly, there wasn’t a single moment that stood apart from the rest until “Torture Garden,” which is more than halfway through the record. That track offered a slower approach that rode on suspense. After this, other songs like “Black Forest” do take a different route to relieve a little bit, but ultimately, there wasn’t a lot to get out of Devil’s Whorehouse.

Clearly not a lot of effort was meant for this kind of project. It could easily get lumped in with the Venoms and Celtic Frosts of the scene, but most of the writing here just falls flat on its face and doesn’t live up to the standards there. Thankfully it isn’t an overly long effort, only reaching about a half hour of runtime. Either way, hard pass for me.