Damnation – “Destructo Evangelia”
Featuring members of Entombed, Merciless and Unanimated, this black metal album is surprisingly tight, raw and varied (within reason). The basic Venom/Bathory/Motorhead styled guitar work sounds, as expected, simple. The surprise is that it sounds vibrant, not tired. The rawness is not ruined by a garage/punk sound, instead it is basic but upfront and strong. The vocals sound like old Venom/Sodom, not the screechy/annoying screaming. I think these vocals can appeal to both black and death people. Also, a lot of the time the speed of this thing is blasting.They cover Bathory’s “Armageddon”. It sounds good. When this album gets to the end, I feel like pressing “play” again. I would not have believed that these people could do something like this, but it’s great to be proven wrong. It’s certainly more interesting than their full-time bands.