Monday, November 7, 2011

Realm of Chaos

Another frustrating Sunday. Were the lows not so low, I don't think the highs would be quite as high. Football season.

Here's something worth revisiting.



What I really enjoy about Realm of Chaos (1989), by the one and only Bolt Thrower can be summed up in a few features. First, the sound, even today, is heavy enough to flatten a human being into paste. Not to use a buzz word that is often utilized for retro and period death metal, but the sound is "cavernous" and is a perfect compliment to Karl Willetts apocalyptic soothsaying. The guitar is appropriately reverbed out and the tone is appropriately muddy and thick.

Stylistically, what's really interesting here is that while it's unmistakably Bolt Thrower playing Bolt Thrower-isms -- those distinctive riffs, that certain rhythmic emphases -- there are features of their playing that would gradually be ironed out by ...For Victory, five years later. One such feature is the loose, frantic blast sections that aren't all that unfamiliar to their contemporaries Carcass and Napalm Death, which nods to the primordial soup that all three came from. Also in Realm, between the riffs that are, again, so unmistakably Bolt Thrower originals, the album is replete with vestigial thrash riffs that wouldn't sound out of place on Seasons in the Abyss, not even mentioning the atonal, whammy-abusing, squealing solos.

Eventually the songs got a bit slower and more triumphant and the leads became a little more consonant. This is a great "throwback" (awful, awful, awful pun) from a band who I've never heard a single bad song from. The 'Thrower. While it's not my favorite, this album is definitely worth a spin and not a bad place to start if you've never listened to them. They're still around. Go see them! Buy some albums?

Title track, live 1991




Fantasy War Nerds

-W.F.

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