Terrorizer

Saturday, 18 February 2012 00:20

Band: Terrorizer
Album: Hordes of Zombies
Label: Season of Mist
Tracks: 14
Release Date: February 24th
Length: 38'12" Riff Score: 5.5/10 How are scores attributed? Terrorizer is back and presenting Hordes Of Zombies, which features half of the original line-up. With this new album the band tries to keep up with the times and reclaim a place they’ve long abandoned.


There are some bands in the metal scene who are worshipped beyond belief, but the deifying patterns most commonly found have to do with legendary albums by a few bands which are held in the highest regards and considered immutable masterpieces that are untouched by the passage of time. By following that train of thought you’ll find out that there are few albums more fellated than Terrorizer’s debut, World Downfall. The album is worshipped by grindcore and death metal fans alike as if it was some sort of holy grail that showed itself to the world once, only to be rendered a urban legend and nowhere to be found again. Despite this sounding slightly as some type of criticism it isn’t, as I consider that the huge amount of praise and almost cult following that World Downfall has is entirely justified.

I mean few albums are more perfect than that one and even more considering the whole story behind it. A singer (Oscar Garcia) who didn’t remembered half of the songs from his demo band that no one knew, held up and thrown into the spotlight by Napalm Death’s Shane Embury who worshipped them. A drummer who was recording another album and a session bassist who simply assisted because the original one was in jail, and only eight hours worth of studio time for a band that was already split-up. This was pretty much the best one-time offer the world could have ever seen. Then 2006 came and it showed the band returning with Darker Days Ahead, and album that suffered from what we call in the metal world “The Comeback Effect”, which basically describes bands that try to make a return to form only to fail miserably and eventually taint their otherwise flawless legacies. In addition to that Jesse Pintado died just shortly after the release of the album, making it impossible for the band to continue at the time.

Fast-forward six years into 2012 and what we see is a reformed Terrorizer by the will of Pete Sandoval to continue playing extreme music outside of his longtime band, Morbid Angel. The singer on their last album is back to continue the spiteful vocal delivery and so is David Vincent who again returns to the bass spot. The line-up is complete with newly added Katina Culture, partner in crime with Anthony Rezhawk in Resistant Culture. All seems in place and my mind wanders between thoughts of a new grandiose album and another utter failure as the intro wallows around for two minutes, until suddenly the title track hits me in the face and Pete proves that his back are still in place. In fact the drumming is still the best part of Terrorizer’s twenty-first century albums as Pete keeps up a frantic pace with great thrashing beats mixed in with frenetic blast beats sections. It has always amazed me how much death/thrash oriented the drumming is, with a nearly complete absence of punk influence, despite this being a grindcore act. The three and a half minutes of the title track go down very fast and without many noticeable points of interest apart from the drums. Then the following “Ignorance And Apathy” continues to unleash the rampaging undead fury, and this I where I begin to realize just how slim and poor the riffing really is. The use of pinch harmonics in this song is quite irritating but I continue listening to the album in the hope of finding a good riff or two. It’s by the time “Subterfuge” and “Evolving Era” hit the speakers that finally some interesting moments can be found on the guitar, as some good riffs can be found there.

However I can’t shed the feeling of having listened to the same two riffs for the last ten minutes and as the album evolves so does my boredom and my actual insensitivity to it. The band feels glad in reveling on this type of formulaic and modern sounding death/grind, not unlike a mix of mid-period Morbid Angel and Phobia, and to be honest it just doesn’t suit them. The choice for leading throat here also doesn’t help, as Rezhawk’s bellowing roar is more akin to a death metal act than grindcore. I find that the new better half (or should I say worst?) of the band fails utterly in convincing me of their skills, as Rezhawk sounds more in line with a brutal Johan Hegg and Katina appears here totally uninspired to say the least. I could just about describe almost every song here the same way as they follow the same pattern of riff with blast beat followed by different riff with thrashing drums, rinse repeat for two to three minutes. I don’t intend on repeating myself anymore or elongating myself in further criticisms but this album manages to bore me, and when a death/grind album does that it’s never a good sign.

I find that Terrorizer’s new album won’t change anyone’s mind about the path they undertook six years ago, but it does give you a more interesting use of your time than Darker Days Ahead did, albeit a very samey one. The album is very repetitive and never goes into unfamiliar territory as the formulaic songwriting is present through and through. Despite all my criticism I think that many people will find this at least a bit appealing, especially if they’re into bands like Phobia or Kill The Client that use a similar approach to the one found here. Bear in mind that this is far from being as brutal as those two mentioned bands, but it still packs enough aggression to have some interest to fans of them. I find the lack of good riffs to be Hordes Of Zombies’ Achilles heel as nearly forty minutes pass and I can’t keep a couple of good ones in my memory, but still this doesn’t sound disjointed or appalling. In the end it’s just an uninspired piece of music apart from the drumming department which clearly sticks with you and makes it bearable. If it wasn’t for Pete’s work I’d probably be unable to listen to this album at all, but I have to say that I admire his unrelenting commitment here. Now if only they wrote good riffs to come along with it...

Review by Júlio Valada




Post: Julio Valada
Source: Season Of Mist






Music Genres: Grindcore | Death Metal |

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