XENOFANES — Pissing In The Holy Grail (review)

XENOFANES — Pissing In The Holy Grail album cover Album · 2015 · Thrash Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Time Signature
Spitfire inferno...

Genre: thrash metal

I had never head of this Swedish band before, but it turns out that they're actually veterans and pioneers of the Swedish extreme metal scene, having been formed in 1993. After a string of underground releases and a hiatus, the band finally released their aptly titled debut full-length album "Pissing in the Holy Grail". I must admit that what drew me to this album was the delightfully hilarious and blasphemous title.

But what sort of music does this band have to offer? Well, the tracks on this album are perhaps best described as relatively primitive thrash metal tracks. I use 'relatively' because, while there is a sense of rawness to Xenofanes' output on this album, we are in no way dealing with simplistic and deliberately low quality black-thrash. The tunes on the album are nicely balanced in terms of the simple and the more complex. A good example is the opening track 'Soulthirst' which starts out simple, with crunchy riffs and budda-budda drums but morphs into a slightly more technical bridge. This characterizes pretty much every song on the album. The major strength of "Pissing in the Holy Grail" are the riff. Every tune is crushing old school thrash metal riff upon crushing old school metal that riff, accompanied by considerably harsh vocals. However, the listener will perhaps be surprised to find melodic elements every now and then with some tracks having a slight melodic black metal feel to them such as the brilliant 'Next Stop Purgatory'.

The production is not lo-fi as such, but it is quite fuzzy. Some will probably consider it organic, and I would be inclined to agree here. The rhythm guitars have a nice retro crunch to them, and the bass is nicely audible. I can live with the production, which reminds me a bit of the demo tapes I used to listen to in the 90s. That's fine. It's authentic. It's underground. Still, I think it's a bit of a shame that the guitar solos are lower in the mix than the rhythm guitars, making it almost sound as if the solos serve as the background to the rest of the instrumentation.

Overall, this album is an organic sounding onslaught of old school thrash metal riffs and should appeal to fans of underground metal - in particular those who enjoy the sound of the 90s underground metal scene.
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