Plague Bearer - Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation

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When the North American Black Metal School started to show its first releases, they used a more crude and nasty model for albums’ sonorities. It can be explained due the influences they carried of early extreme Metal acts of the 80’s as DESTRUCTION, SODOM, KREATOR, SLAYER, VOIVOD, HELLHAMMER and others in their early releases, when the raw sound was a consequence of the lack of a proper sonority for the genre. It explains the sonority used for albums as “Barathrum: V.I.T.R.I.O.L.” (the first album of ABSU) and “The Atlantean Wardragon” (the first album of BLOOD STORM). But this formula keeps inspiring many bands, as PLAGUE BEARER, as can be heard on “Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation”.

They can be said as a band that combines the same Black/Thrash Metal formula of their compatriots named above, but fusing it with Old School Death Metal when the genre was born (in other words, near what DEATH, POSSESSED, MASSACRE and MASTER did on their origins), what’s not strange for a veteran on the genre (the band was born in 1992). But one must pay heavy attention that even in this way they show a strong personality, playing with a simple (but efficient) technical insight, but the music bleeds with energy and aggressiveness. Yes, it’s very good, indeed. The sonority, as the first paragraph points to, is crude as the old records of the past, but with a slightly (but worthy) difference: it doesn’t sound like this because they want, but because it what the music of the band needs. And after all, one can understand clearly what’s being expressed by the trio, and it’s not fuzzy or moldy.

Be prepared, because this album has more hooks and a cenobite, and to fall in love with it is simple, especially due what is shown on songs as “Unholy Black Satanic War Metal” (the combination of very good rhythmic shifts with aggressive guitar riffs and snarls of the vocals is hard to resist to), “Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation” (what very good rhythmic work of bass guitar and drums, especially during the shifts), “Defiled by Sodomy” (this one is filled with excellent extreme hooks due the slow paced tempos used on it, and what good work of the vocals), “Decapitated Angels” (this one guards many resemblances with Black Metal Second Wave acts due the massive and hooking guitars), “Under One Sign” (the subjective melodic touches creates that funereal appeal that is usual for North American Black Metal acts of this generation), “Churches Are in Flames” (extreme, violent and extreme, and once more the Old School hooks are presented by a melodic tack), and “Christbane”. But the entire album is excellent.

This is the first PLAGUE BEARER album, and it is a parallel project of Kelly Kuciemba (the guitarist Plague Bearer), and let’s hope that “Summoning Apocalyptic Devastation” will not be the only album of the band, but just the beginning of this infernal earthquake.

Songwriting: 10
Musicianship: 9
Memorability: 9
Production: 6