A long winded tale belongs to the doing of this review, first involving the recommendation of said EP by two parties, then my complete forgetting to doing so, finishing off with me remembering it by some bizarre reason and running around like a headless chook scrambling to get it done ha-ha. That will suffice in the explanation stakes, I will spare you the finer details.
So Tito Vespasiani of Everlasting Spew Records shared it, told me to check it out.. What the fuck does he know? Only that I like some good hard Death Metal, apart from that, fuck all ha-ha, nah the dude knows his shit and he knows what people like. Then an email came from some bloke called Dan from Camo Pants Records. What the fuck? Camo Pants, who actually really wears them anymore. Apart from me when I go fishing, shopping, breathe. Etc…
A cover to die for if you like Conan the Barbarian, and a title to make you giggle. “Visions of the Firestorm Eclipse” sure, you have visions, of eclipses built of fire.Yep, this is going to be fucking spectacular. Shit man, what a setup. Yet lo and behold, they fucking made me look proper silly, Indeed The Great Mackintosh was being very presumptuous, and that was my failing. Never, ever, presume anything…
Four tracks of the most gritty, awesome Death Metal await. There is nothing new here. Nothing original, nothing mind blowing. You will not be playing this one when your mates come over and want to listen to their favourite Tech Death album for the umpteenth time. When they mention their latest Prog Metal find on Bandcamp you shall indulge them. You will listen to their endless dribble about this band, that band. You will wait till they fuck right off, and then you will turn up the stereo (so to speak), and CRANK THE FUCK out of this.
An exercise into how to pound one’s skull in with a very large blunt weapon. Call it a ‘Spectacle of Suffering”, walk through “The Mists Of Blood” if you dare. “Entrails Ablaze” will certainly set you on fire if you weren’t already, and “Hellwater”? Worse than having your entrails ablaze man, that shit really burns ha-ha. This fucker right here eclipses so many other shit bands out there that it will amaze you. With a tone like a runaway pack of heavily armoured lunatics, and a production bordering on the not so much like a polished breastplate but more like a bloody gauntlet variety, this little collection of tunes to take with you on your way to Constantinople hits all my buttons, especially the ones involving ‘Barbarian Acts of Cruelty’ and ‘General Shenanigans with Sharp Bits of Steel’.
Yep, good old fashioned Death Metal with plenty of heart and soul, almost like comfort food (like a whole wild boar all to yourself), drinking from the skulls of your enemies, or your favourite armchair after a hard day of raping and pillaging. Thank you Tito, thank you Dan from hidey trousers, you have made my day. I’m off to free some heads from their oppressive captors, them being the bodies they are attached to.
Get on it.
Rating – 4/5
Have your noggin caved in right here!
https://camopantsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/visions-of-the-firestorm-eclipse
The Metal Wanderlust 