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Terrorizer: Darker days ahead

16/07/06 || Lord K Philipson

The wait has been long… 17 fucken years or something… It’s not easy to do a follow-up to one of the finest albums in the history of death and grindcore, namely 1989’s “World downfall”. The wait is now over. Terrorizer’s fucken back, bitches! Oh, and if you have a problem with longer reviews… Eat. My. Penis. But before we take our cocks out and start yanking the foreskin in various funny directions, let’s see what some of the talk before this album was unleashed had to say:

“There are reportedly talks of introducing classical piano parts, industrial noise parts and chants on the new record. A 13-minute-plus song is in the works as well as some of the fastest drumming ever put to tape.”

I didn’t exactly put my penis in the freezer out of pure joy after reading that. Like Anders of Nasum said on the Nasum-site:

“Classical piano? Chants? 13-minute-plus song? Fuck that — just give us the classic ripping TERRORIZER grindcore that we want and don’t fuck up the sound with attempts to be original. The demo track (“Doomed forever”) at Terrorizer’s MySpace page sounds too much like death metal with really downtuned guitars. I don’t want that!”

My thoughts were along those lines as well, though I don’t mind death metal with downtuned guitars at all, but Anders usually knows a few shits about shit so… I didn’t listen to the track in question as I wanted to wait for the whole thing to arrive. And now it has. And I have listened thru it quite a few times by now. So, are there any 13-minute tracks and fucken classical piano-pieces included? Does the album include “some of the fastest drumming ever put to tape”? Is it a worthy follow-up to the legendary “World downfall”? Is the new vocalist on par with Oscar Garcia? Is Jesse Pintado still as beautiful as a troll? Where the fuck is David Vincent? And why? And when did he turn into a flaming homosexual? The questions are many, the answers are…

Let’s see here…

For starters, some of the drumsounds irritates me. I should have known this would be the case since Mr. Sandoval is playing, and he’s obviously stone-deaf when it comes to use a good drumsound nowadays, no matter how good a drummer he obviously is. He is deaf , I tells you! DEAF! I’ve got the Morbid Penis albums to prove it and The Cranberries once released a CD about this opinion: “No need to argue”. Tell me how many people can insert a reference to The Cranberries into a review about a grindcore/death band… I am truly awesome. Applauds are most welcome, bitches. Anyways, it’s the quite high kicks that annoys me, but the overly triggered toms (listen to the opening of “Crematorium” for a good laugh) takes the fucken grand prize. Then again, it’s Pete’s trademark, which is quite sad.

So, where the fuck were we?

After a useless intro, the album takes off. And it’s safe to say it has its high and lows. The title-track (also the opener of this piece) is one of those highs. “Crematorium” is another (after getting passed the horrible drum-intro). “Fallout” has a heavy start that makes me smile while it relentlessly pounds its way thru my speakers in all its grind’n‘glory, accompanied by heavier breakdowns. As a whole I’m not that impressed by this tune though. “Doomed forever” is, as Nasum-Anders said, pretty much a death metal tune which reminds me of newer Grave at times. Pretty much a low on the album. No offense to the Grave-fucko’s. At times I get Vader-vibes from Anthony’s vocals, only Piotr is way better.

“Mayhem” is another tune that stands true to the sound of this album, even though I have yet to find those “some of the fastest drumming ever put to tape” in the songs. “Mayhem” is neither a high on this album, I’m sad to say. And is it possible that Anthony’s singing “Trapped in Paris” (or could it POSSIBLY be “Trapped in penis?) at the 3-minute mark in this one? It sure sounds like it. That would be so fucken metal. “Blind army” sounds a bit more “World downfall”-era at times though I’m not a huge fan of the actual chorus. The breakdown is neat though and Pete’s blasting away here and there, but it’s definitely not even close to “some of the fastest drumming ever put to tape”.

8th track, “Nightmare”, is a full-on death metal assault and much of the vibe Terrorizer used to possess so well is not to be found here. I think the production and the vocals has a lot to do with this. Good fucken song though and Pete’s utilizing fast doublebasses for fine groove. “Legacy of brutality” marches on in its take-no-prisoners fashion. Not necessarily a catchy piece by far but the aggression and blasts makes up for it. And next is the re-recording of classic tune “Dead shall rise”. All I wonder is why? Was a re-recording necessary really? Nope, it wasn’t. The tune is already a classic and the original recording is better than this “V.06” thing. It says quite a bit when the best tune on the whole album is an old tune written some 15 years (or so, fuck you) ago. “Victim of greed” starts of nice and I wish this album held more of this groove for bigger variety. One of the better tracks for sure.

That was that. 17 years of waiting is over. And that was that?

Rundown: Anthony’s vocals are fine but tend to get a bit boring in the long-run. The toms sound awful and the kicks are a bit too high for my liking. There’s not enough memorable riffs present and the lack of groove is obvious. Everything that made “World downfall” a classic is kinda missing here. Get me right, it’s a good album, it’s just not even close to “World downfall”, which is the recording everyone will naturally be comparing this one to.

And no, there are no 13-minute tunes, classical piano-pieces, chants or anything out of the ordinary present here in the songs (I’m not counting the outro which is having some bullshit-piano included). That was obviously just a public stunt by the band to cause some commotion, for which I’m glad. It’s all grind/death metal. Competent and kinda “safe” if you get my point. I expected more but somewhere knew that this was what it would be sounding like.

7/10.

Information
Released: 2006
Label: Century Media
Website: www.terrorizer.us
Band
Anthony Rezhawk: vocals
Jesse Pintado: guitars
Tony Norman: guitars, bass
Pete Sandoval: drums

Tracklist
01. Inevitable (intro)
02. Darker days ahead
03. Crematorium
04. Doomed forever
05. Mayhem
06. Blind army
07. Nightmare
08. Legacy of brutality
09. Dead shall rise V.06
10. Victim of greed
11. Ghost train (outro)

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