Legion of the Damned – Cult of the Dead

A mixture of excreting barbed wire and being slapped in the face.

A collection of messy riffs, bland screamy vocals and monotonous double bass drumming that sounds like a wood chipper which has had a cement mixer shoved in it. Most of what I’m hearing is nothing short of boring. Just because you’re ripping your vocal chords and talking about the dead rising to rip out the vital organs of everyone on the planet does not stop you from being entirely boring and causing me to slip into some sort of coma.

It’s a shame that Legion of the Damned seem have glued their face to a sheet of paper that reads “Do really boring death metal” because there are some glimpses of really interesting ideas that are more versatile styles into the mix and cause a random spasm of interest in my tiny mind that did drag my through the album and help to relieve the boredom.

The bits that seem to cause the most excitement in the album are the breakdowns, bridges and middle eights, which elevate from the standard rhythm and single tone screaming that fills the rest of the tracks. These slight nuances are very engaging and really do stem the tedium that the rest of the album brings. These sections alone are not enough to save the album from the pits of my bin, but they are enough to keep me listening to the end and even listen to the album more than once, which is more than most albums do.
Listen to this album:  With rotting flesh and pierced eyelids.

Rating: 67%

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“Cult of the Dead”

Testament – The Formation of Damnation

Like a hack saw to the back.

This album, takes the notion of thrash metal, turns it into rubber and twists it and stretches it. It’s stretched, but you let go and it springs back into shape. Going from sounding very similar to other thrash favourites, they jump across and pay a visit to other sub-genres of metal, including some death-metal style screaming before returning back to thrash their way through a few more songs. This is an epic, I was surprised when I found that the run time was only 49:40, I feel I’ve been here since the 80s.

They sound very much like an evil version of Metallica.

Testament are one of the heaviest metal bands out there and they are the only one who have continued to produce in this same form for this many years.

Listen to this album: While stood on a pedestal in the middle of a volcano.

Rating: 77%

Extracts from ‘More than meets the eye’, ‘The formation of damnation’, ‘Henchmen Ride’ and ‘Killing Season’