Yersinia Pestis

Torchbearer's debut release, Yersinia Pestis, is upon us. And, much like the aptly titled album refering to the virus carried in rats that caused The Bubonic Plague, most of the lyrics are crafted around either this plague, or specific time period. The band, blending death and black metal with a more thrash musical style, seem to answer the never really asked until now question: Just how many songs can you fit on a CD about one of the worst virus outbreaks in history?

Quite a few it turns out, and many of them none too good. As stated, the music itself holds more of a thrash feel, very reminiscent of old school bands in the same style, as well as some that pioneered the death metal sound. Traces of Venom do linger through some of the riffs, more prodominantly in "Faith Bled Dry", as well as even a story telling feel more noticable in a King Diamond record on "Dead Children, Black Rats", but, sadly, poorly done vocally. You also have issues as far as proper time period word usage. For example, the track "Sown Are The Seeds Of Death" contains usage of the word "Yee", while the track "Pest Cometh" uses the word "Microorgasmic", which will confuse you as to whether the album is supposed to be set in the same time period as this plague, or whether it's the band just fondly looking back at it.

Yes, there are some good tracks on this release, but not many. "Faith Bled Dry" and "Far Advanced Closure" are very well performed musically and vocally as compared to the rest of the disc. "Pest Cometh", however, seems to be a bit different from the material on this album, being more of an old school track in the vain of late-Carcass. Finally, we come to the best track of this opus, "Thus Came Dying Unto Kaffa" is a heavily thrash influenced song that suits the vocals more then any song on the entire release. It's fast, it's heavy, it's brutal, it's lyrics are entertaining, and should have been the blue print for this album.

Put bluntly, the album is rather dull. The band had a good idea, but the outcome saw rather poor writing as far as lyrics go, and some moderately entertaining music with a few impressive guitar solos thrown in. Aside the few aforementioned stand out tracks, which all but one really aren't all that impressive anyway, Yersinia Pestis is a decent attempt to create a conceptual album through a hybrid of style, and not the typical power metal genre. The band deserves credit for writing an entire album based on one of the worst events in man's history. The album is definitely a dark and disparaging look at the horrific events that transpired through fictitious eyes, but won't really have much of a lasting appeal outside of that first listen.