Album Review: Grünberger – Warfist

Polish underground Blackened Thrash legends Warfist return with their third full length, “Grünberger” and it is even more ‘Thrash-tastic’ than their two predecessors “The Devil lives in Grünberg” back in 2014 and 2016’s “Metal to the Bone”, the latter of these two made a huge impact on me, as my first joyous encounter with these guys, it was an album which really lived up to its name. A lethal mix of Black ‘n’ Thrash-meets Rock ‘n’ Roll .

For this latest endeavour they are now just a duo but no less crushing, in fact in terms of composition, delivery and production I do think they have surpassed “Metal to the Bone”, it’s still a straightforward, uncomplicated and well delivered chunk of Old School Metal that is a dirty, raw and compelling listen, with scathing, edgy, yet very definable vocals and a thunderous, Blackened Old school edged Thrash delivery.

“Grünberger” is a ten track thirty-seven minute offering that is unrelenting from start to finish, Thrash delivered as it should be, no favourite tracks for me here, it’s superb end to end, I love each track for its own individual merit, all very lyrically profound, conceptually inspired by the dark regional history of their home Zielona Góra (Grunberg) and all rear driven by a powerful and varied drum delivery which bolsters the already massively dense sound, from the opener “Black Army” which bursts into a Thrashy onslaught straight after a haunting acoustic opener all the way to closing crusher “Atrocious Saviour”.

In between some of the delights are the Thrashy gallop and dirty lead work of “The Chapel of Death” which sits particularly well with the vocals, the dark pounding riffs on “Feasting on Dead Bodies” are hugely dramatic, then there’s the soaring lead work of “Black Army” and “The Burning Flames of Ignorance” a punishingly unrelenting number with well placed poignantly phrased vocals where the tempo changes, adding drama and impact by the truckload and I love the guitar work that sits in the vocal pauses on “March of Death”, very impactful, and “Slay, Swive and Devour” is even more unrelenting in pace than its predecessors, easing only for a brutal delivery of the title line. Warfist do ease back slightly for “The Punishment” but what it loses in pace it makes up in dark crushing brutality and insane midpoint lead work. The spoken passage on “Death By Cleansing Fire” is an actual extract from the original witches trial sentence from the seventeenth century.