BETRAYER — Calamity (review)

Album · 1994 · Death Metal

3/5 · 2024-04-07
siLLy puPPy

Originally formed as a thrash metal band in Słupsk, Poland in 1989, BETRAYER quickly switched over to the world of death metal and released a couple demos before it’s 1994 debut CALAMITY came out. Probably best known amongst death metal junkies as the band that Piotr "Berial" Kuzioła (vocals, bass) continued after a brief stint in the more famous Vader, BETRAYER only released this one album in its original formation and soon disbanded shortly after when guitarist Ripper had grown tired of the band. BETRAYER reformed in 2012 and has released two albums since.

This is one of those band’s that should have made it to the big time due to all the publicity and opportunities yet somehow evaded any success stories. The band’s two demos were highly recorded by Thrash ‘Em All Magazine and “Necronomical Exmortis” even made it to #2 as album of the year. Add to that BETRAYER was placed at #4 for most promising Polish bands of 1991 and the band engaged in extensive touring and after the release of CALAMITY found itself invited to all kinds of metal festivals including Metalmania, Death Metal Festival, Dramma, Shark Attack, S’trash’ydło and Jarocin and played with many of the famous bands that went on to the big time including Morbid Angel, Deicide, Death, Carcass, Cannibal Corpse, Therion, Tiamat, Dismember and many local Polish bands like Kat, Vader, Pandemonium etc.

CALAMITY is a typical old school death metal album that featured eight tracks and the short playing time of just under 33 minutes. The lineup at this stage was the foursome of Berial on vocals and bass, Ripper and Riji on twin guitar attacks and Molly on drums. Lyrics were performed in English and themes were the typical subject matter of death, blasphemy, suffering and in BETRAYER’s case anti-Christianity giving them a bit of a black metal attitude. For the most part BETRAYER was heavily influenced by the US scene with bands like Morbid Angel and Deicide being on the top of the list however it’s not a surprise that Vader also provided an inspirational exuberance on the band as well. While creativity was not the band’s strongest attribute a few moments like on the ending of “Before Long You Will Die,” the band deviates from the game plan and delivers a strange repetitive riffing style.

Despite every opportunity afford BETRAYER, what the band lacked was a clear vision of how to distinguish itself from the legions of death metal bands that had glutted the market by the time CALAMITY came out. Overall this is a very competent album that ticks off all the proper old school death metal requirements but at the end of the day the band wasn’t quite unique enough to stand out. At the time of release of CALAMITY the band had already had enough with various health problems, label mishaps and incessant touring. The band broke up a short time after this album’s release but would find new life in 2012. This is a decent enough album but basically sounds more like a second rate Morbid Angel than anything to get overly excited about. Mostly interesting for checking out early Polish death metal history. Definitely one of those close, but no cigar type of bands.