Hellripper is a one-man black/speed metal band from the UK.
Complete and Total Fucking Mayhem is a compilation of all of the Hellripper work so far. This includes The Manifestation of Evil, a split with Batsheva, a three-way split with Acid Cross and Kreigg, and finally a split with Fetid Zombie called Prophecies of Ruin. All tracks have been remastered for this release. Continue reading “Hellripper – Complete and Total Fucking Mayhem (Review)”
Hellripper is a one-man Black Metal band from Scotland and this is his first release.
If you’re anything like me, when you think of one-man Black Metal bands you tend to think of the longer, darker end of the Black Metal spectrum; crazed loners creating malevolent art that sprawls aeons of textured oblivion.
What you probably don’t think of is raw, underground, Speed Metal infused Black Metal. This entire EP is shorter than the average one-man Black Metal project’s song length.
This is ugly and primitive but not without character. The riffs have attitude and it’s like a Blackened Motörhead mixed with Impaled Nazarene or Audiopain and a sprinkling of early Kreator.
The songs are good, much better than you might think. The more I listen to it the more I think of a Blackened version of Kreator, when they first started off and were all spikes and attitude. Hellripper are cut from the same bloody cloth.
Short, loose and surprisingly catchy, Hellripper have produced an enjoyable ride through the worst part of town.
Listen loud.
Septekh are from Sweden and play Death/Thrash Metal with a Blackened edge.
Based on the album cover I was expecting something a bit calmer than this, but what bursts from the speakers when the first song Into the Void of My Mind starts is a frenetic and excitable beast covered in spikes and claws.
This reminds me of a mix of bands like Darkthrone, Audio Pain and Aura Noir, with the stylistic nature and playfulness of a band like Die Apokalyptischen Reiter.
The vocals are straight form the nails-down-a-blackboard school of throat shredding. They do the job well and manage to avoid the faceless nature of this kind of vocals by having a clear identity and personality behind the bark.
At an hour in length this is a long release with a lot of content to digest. This album works best over repeated spins though as it takes a while for the Blackened melodies and rhythmic patterns to imprint themselves on the psyche. But imprint they do as first and foremost these tracks are songs and as such have hooks and catchiness more than you would expect for a band of this ilk. Death/Thrash/Black they may be, but there’s a firm core of out and out Rock running through this album.
Satisfying and enjoyable, Septekh have produced a solid slab of Metal that will have you coming back for more, again and again. Perhaps world domination isn’t as unlikely as you first thought…?
Wonderbox Metal 