So, recently I spent a day wandering aimlessly around the internet searching for nothing in particular, when out of the blue I find a band called Plague Years. Interesting says I, as I press the play button for the first time and wait to see what comes out of my headphones. Well holy shit and fuck me sideways as they say, I had to hang on to my chair as I was blasted right across the room and knocked clean on my arse with their release “Circle of Darkness.”
What a debut album this is. Hardcore vocals combined with Thrash grooves and even some Death Metal pieces combined in a whirlwind of raw aggression and blistering speed and I haven’t even mentioned the Metal purity that combines vocalisitic anger, aggressively wicked riffs and violent pounding drum beats that will have you banging heads and forming pits in your own loungeroom.
I’m not going to go through every track so your lazy arse doesn’t have to read too much, but I will mention a few.
“Play the Victim” starts the battering with a blitzkrieg onslaught of attack ready vocals, riffs and grooves that are just a joy to be heard all combined with some of the most ferocious drumming you could hope for. The storming heaviness doesn’t let up with one of the most memorable opening riffs you’ve ever heard which is the opening to “Paradox of Death.” This will have your leg shaking instinctively like it has a mind of its own. “Eternal Fire” crushes with its slower destructive tempo which is magnificently fused with a dark and ominous diversion from the rest of the thrashier assaults on offer on this beast.
The title track “Circle of Darkness” and “Urge to Kill” bring together everything that is the best of Plague Years, mixing all the elements of what makes an exceptional and monstrous Metal album. Pace changes, atmosphere and just plain old hit your hand with a hammer physical battering’s are what you get, and this is pretty much what we as Metal heads like most is it not?
This could well be my album of the year so far. I’m just pissed at myself that it took so long for me to find it and even more pissed that I didn’t let you, the reader, know about it sooner. I’ve played this over and over again and just love every fucking infectious minute. Remember the name, Plague Years, cause I’m here to say that they will be huge if the standard of “Circle of Darkness” is anything to go by.
Rating – 5/5
https://plagueyears.bandcamp.com/
The Metal Wanderlust 