The Laws of Scourge

Most of the bands that played a raw form of death/black metal in the 80s somehow changed their style in the 90s. It happened for Sepultura, Kreator, Sodom and to Sarcofago too. Their I.N.R.I. is still nowadays regarded as a milestone in black/thrash metal and as one of the most extreme examples of brutal music back in the 80s. Their following Rotting already showed some more thrash metal oriented riffs and less will to destroy everything, displaying their growth in technique and songwriting. Anyway, to me I.N.R.I. is still the best album in their discography.

This third album, The Laws of Scourge, marks a further separation from the primordial black/thrash of the debut to embrace more thrash influences. Everything remains quite raw anyway, but the band had chosen a less impulsive approach to the music and the structures now are a bit more complex (they are not a technical thrash metal band anyway!) and full of more various riffs. The main problem is that when I.N.R.I. sounded refreshing in its sheer brutality, this The Laws of Scourge doesn’t manage to keep always my attention even if they grew as musicians…

It’s not a bad album, not at all and it contains good songs but some parts are a bit too weak and sound tired. Maybe it’s because of the production, that is a bit sloppy for the guitars but some parts still don’t convince me even if I’ve listened to this CD many times. Let’s start from the title track that is one of the most representative ones here. Already from here you can listen to the first thrash metal riffs while the most brutal parts come with the blast beats sections. These are just quite short and the band prefers the up tempo to accompany the music.

The same thing can be said for the following “Piercings” but this time the blast beats parts are longer. The guitars are not excellent here and too many riffs-fillers manage to transform the sound in a boring one, like the following “Midnight Queen”. The doom parts are way too long even if the refrain is very good and simple. The vocals by Wagner are less brutal and raspier in tonality but less growlish and in “Screeches from the Silence” they reach high tonalities too. To notice the use of some keyboards parts to maintain a darker sound. In I.N.R.I. they didn’t need those keyboards and with this I said everything.

“Prelude to a Suicide”, “Secrets of a Window” and “Little Julie” are basically mid-paced songs and they are quite boring. The arpeggios parts are far better but forget the old school brutality. It’s a pity because “The Black Vomit” and “Crush, Kill, Destroy” are better even if the mid-paced parts and the more technical and melodic solos are always behind the corner. Anyway, these songs are able to give me a good dose of early black/thrash violence in some parts while soon they fall into the almost pure thrash metal. Overall, I cannot see all this goodness in this release. It’s a goodish effort but nothing special to me, honestly.

The following album would have been a bit too chaotic while this one marks some heavy thrash influences. What really bothered me are the tasteless, boring mid-paced parts. They are mostly fillers while the fastest tracks are better.