Kev Rowland I know very little about this Chile-based band, but they released their debut album as long ago as 2008, and the same line-up has been together since 2009. There have been some EP’s and singles, but the second album didn’t come out until 2015, and this is their third. This is blackened thrash metal with more than one eye on classic Darkthrone and Bathory with perhaps some Sodom thrown in for good measure. Distorted and very angry, here is a band who want to destroy their instruments with aggression as they bring brutal death metal into the mix as well, covering all the bases for an over the top attack on the senses. I also find myself being reminded of the classic Brazilian band Sarcófago, plus a conversation between Bill Steer and Shane Embury on the classic BBC documentary where they were talking about how there were some really good death bands in Chile.

It is brutal, basic, with production as clear as mud, which is just right for this style of music. The vocals are raw and powerful, right in your face, as the maelstrom of noise comes together into something which feels incredibly naïve, incredibly honest, and indisputably powerful. According to the press release, with this album “you're laughing like a madman, hanging on for dear life as the winds of the vortex tear at your body. The music shifts and surges organically; accelerating, settling, exploding”, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. This is brutal stuff which has no place at all in 2019 as it should have come out 20 or 30 years ago, yet here it is in all its dark relentless beauty.

Vehemency Hailing from Chile, Perversor unleashed its second output named Demon Metal in early 2010. If you take a look at the cover art you might already get a good hint of what the EP contains: filthy, old school black / thrash metal executed with absolute ferocity. Influences range from Hellhammer and Bathory to perhaps Blasphemy (as witnessed on parts of the third track ”Enthrone the God of Blasphemy”).

The speed is almost always set at high and there is no room for mercy. Only the beginning of ”Victory of the Legions of the Damned” goes in slow tempo until even that bursts into furious violence. There is not much to say about any specific tracks but luckily the riffs are still enough distinct from each other so that none of them sound half-assed. The fast riffs are played very tightly and overall the material sounds well-rehearsed. The kind-of warm (nicely uncompressed and earthly) production hints that Demon Metal is at its best when listened on vinyl, so I would suggest getting that version if possible.

Demon Metal provides absolutely nothing new to the genre, but as with Proclamation, it is still great sounding. 17 minutes is a good dose of this furious desecration so all in all Demon Metal is a good release and it definitely makes me want to check out their debut album from 2008.