Time Signature Time to die...

Genre: black thrash

The Spanish black-thrash maniacs are back with their third album "Metal Fist Destroyer". Known for their straight ahead style, Körgull the Exterminaotr not surprisingly explore furhter the aesthetics of dirty black-thrash.

Most of the tracks on the album evolve around relatively simple riffs performed with ultra tast tremolo picking an accompanied by Lilith Necrobitch's insane aggression-filled vocals. Amidst all this black-thrash madness, we do encounter some more defined riffs, as heard in 'Time to Die', for instance. Also drawing on an inspiration from Discharge (perhaps via inspiration from Hellhammer/Celtic Frost), the Spaniards inject a dose of crusty d-beating into 'Kill the Bastard', which one of my favorite tracks on the album. Of course, there are also some d-beats and crust elements in their cover version of the Voivod classic 'Körgull the Exterminator'.

The production is a bit on the raw side, and sometimes the tempo is so fast that the drummer seems not to be able to keep up - especially in those passages that contain old school black metal blastbeats - which does give the performance a slight feel of sloppiness. Whether or not this is intentional I don't know, but it does kind of fit the entire attitude that characterizes the abum.

Embracing old school black-thrash, this album is probably not everybody's cup of tea, but I do like its spirit and energy. Fans of black-thrash who like lo-fi productions should definitely check out this album.

Time Signature Never ending metal...

Genre: black thrash

There is no shortage of evil alliances in the form of splits featuring extreme metal bands. "When the Hammer Strikes... the Exterminator Arrives" is one such release which features Norwegian black thrashers Deathhammer and Spanish black thrashers Körgull the Exterminator, both of whom contribute two tracks.

The two Körgull the Exterminator tracks fall under the rubric of black thrash, injecting both elements from early black metal and primitive thrash metal into their style. While 'The Flag of Hate Shall Rise Again' is combines speed metal and early thrash metal, drawing on a few primitive and aggressive figures which are repeated efficiently, 'Never Ending Woods' leans more towards pure raw black metal with elements of brutal thrash metal. And everything is blacked up by Lilith Necrobitch's insane vocals.

The production is raw and dirty and reverb-ladden, and in that sense very retro, referring to the sound that a lot of metal acts had in the 80s.

Fans of Hellhammer and early Celtic Frost as well as thrash/punk-oriented black metal acts like Darkthrone and Curse, and possibly also Nadiwrath, should definitely check out this split - but hurry up, it is only available in 500 copies.

UMUR "When the Hammer Strikes......The Exterminator Arrives!!!" is a split single release by Norwegian thrash metal act Deathhammer and Spanish blackened thrash metal act Körgull the Exterminator. The split was released in October 2011 by Duplicate Records. It´s limited to 500 copies on black 7" vinyl in foldout cover.

The split features two tracks by Deathhammer and two tracks by Körgull the Exterminator distributed over 12:56 minutes of playing time and if you hadn´t smelled the rat after looking at the cover artwork it´ll become obvious right of the bat, that we´re dealing with a filthy, raw and old school thrash metal release when listening to the music. The two Deathhammer tracks sound like they were recorded in a rehearsal room. Lo-fi sound quality and filthy, raw and simple old school thrash metal is what you´ll be exposed to. The sound quality is slightly more professional on the two tracks by Körgull the Exterminator but we´re still in raw demo quality territory. Compared to the Deathhammer tracks the two tracks by Körgull the Exterminator take on a more blackened tone. The music is still old school thrash metal at it´s core though.

We´re not exactly talking brilliant musicianship or especially clever or original compositions, but there´s no denying that the savage delivery and passionate performance make up for some of that. I found myself enjoying this quite a bit and I think a 3 star rating is fair.