Time Signature Queens of sodomy...

Genre: black-thrash

German black-thrashers Desaster have been at it since the late eighties and are obviously very experienced metal musicians.

On "The Arts of Destruction", like on previous editions releases, the seasoned German band offers hateful and satanic black-thrash. Now, black-thrash often turns out to be rather one-dimensional, and this is obviously something that many see as a positive quality, while others find it monotonous and boring. Desaster do not even have to worry this about, because on this album they manage to capture the primitive energy that constitutes the core of black-thrash, but, at the same time, they ensure that the album as a whole is varied and interesting to listen to.

After a dark and epic intro and the first real song of the album (which is also the disc's title song and an all out black metal affair with some old school metal elements) Desaster reveal their core style in "Lacerate With Hands of Doom", which is an uptempo thrash metal song, based on a few but powerful riffs - some of which are even kind of melodic. The melodic aspect is further explored in "Phantom Funeral" and the epic black metal-oriented "Possessed and Defiled", while "Splendour Of The Idols" is quite heavy. The rest of the album consists broadly of fast and aggressive thrash metal songs that are comparable to early Slayer and early Sacred Reich, as well as Sodom and Destruction.

Production is not exactly polished, but cannot be said to be raw either. There is lots of reverb on the guitars and vocals, which is probably a tactic is meant to emulate the typical metal productions of the 80s.

On the whole, this is an excellent release: it is evil and primitive, but still varied and sometimes melodic, and it will certainly appeal to fans of primitive black-thrash, more melodic thrash metal and black metal .