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Feral: Dragged to the altar

09/06/11 || Daemonomania

First and foremost, hats off to forumer Hook (leader of this pack of feral wildcats) for being a cool dude. He likes Runemagick. He likes my reviews. As soon as my black painter’s smock, ski mask, duct tape, puffy shoes and tickets to Sweden arrive in the mail, we’ll find out if he likes manrape. My guess is YES.

So what Hook(er) and his minions have crafted here is 11 tracks of core-values Swedeathery, spiced up by some of the “Wolverine blues” mindset towards death ‘n roll. I’ve read reviews where the similarities to Entombed’s 1993 masterpiece were a bit overstated, so let’s be sure to confirm that while there are some more rollin’ riffs present there’s never much doubt that we’re listening to anything other than Scandinavian evil performed according to dictums laid down since time immemorial.

Let’s start with the positive. The production is quality indeed, allowing a thunking bass to be heard often, the drums to churn, and the vocals to hover like a ghastly phantom above all. Plus when you take that old-skool crunchy guitar tone and give it the benefit of modern studio wizardry, good things are bound to happen. Look at fucken Black Breath for instance. Score. Feral also bring some good riffs to the picnic ov disembowelment. After all, can’t go wrong when you’ve got a goddamn hamburger wielding an axe. If you want groovin’ gold see “Welcome to the graveyard”. If you want something a bit faster mixed with the slow punches check out “Malevolent summoning”. If you want to be straight-up kicked in the skull by an awesome modern take on an old formula listen to “Behead the crucifix”, which dominates supremely on all levels. Even the fire level where Isaac Hayes currently battles the crabgod for Scientology treasures.

Now for the yang to all this yin, or whatever. For me a lot of “Dragged”, well…it drags. The problem lies not in individual instruments or in the soundscapes or atmosphere or some other such bullshit a reviewer might spout out. The ball gets dropped in the songwriting department. Nothing grates upon the ear, but at the same time most of what I’m hearing fails to fully capture my attention. A breakdown will emerge and I’ll perk up, but then Feral keeps riding the same riff too long again and the zoneout returns. Maybe the tracks need a bit of pruning, or maybe they just need to do what they did in “Behead…” and serve the listener a more varied platter. Also, repeating some variation of title of the song for the last minute (I call this the Rage Against the Machine tactic) is totally cliché.

Nonetheless I’m happy to have some Feral in my digital collection, and I think these guys have it in ‘em to shit forth a mighty album that will bring about the Second Squirting of Christmas. They just need to sharpen their nails a bit more before pounding them in. Best of luck with that Hook and the Gang. Daemo, GD, Runemagick, and Satan upon his skullthrone which must be located somewhere in the Swedish countryside are rooting for you.

Information
Released: 2011
Label: Ibex Moon
Website: www.feral.se/
Band
Hook: vocals
Svarte Petter: guitars
Big Mac: guitars
Valmer: bass
Damien: drums

Tracklist
01. Once Inside the Tomb
02. Altar of Necromancy
03. Judas
04. Welcome to the Graveyard
05. Howling
06. The Deathbog
07. Graverobber
08. The Curse of the Casket
09. Behead the Crucifix
10. Malevolent Summoning
11. Outro

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