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SADISTIC FORCE
Aces Wild

Mercenary Press / Postmortem Apocalypse (2021)
Rating: 8/10

This black / thrash act from Austin, Texas has been extremely prolific this year with two EP’s, a compilation, a single and now this full-length offering, Aces Wild.

The album title may sound like a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal throwback, but Sadistic Force is very much a clattering, billowing heap of blackened scrap metal born out of the same crusty womb that spawned Venom, Bathory et al.

Opener ‘2000 Volts’ is a shrieking, clanking speedfest spitting nails, coughing rust and choking on black smoke. These guys really know how to paint the skies with black fumes as a sterling solo makes way for a classy early 80s beef cake riff, while vocalist James Oliver yells and yaps like he’s reaching up a bucket of oil.

Yes, this is about as oily as it gets as Sadistic Force successfully, yet hideously fuses black metal, rotten thrash and traditional metal values to create a slithering wreck of an album that stifles your cries with leather jacket fumes.

Jose Alcaraz’s drums are hellish beats and blasts to keep this unholy furnace operating, while the driving bass of Blaine Dismukes gnashes furiously as this trio of terror rides into battle, fully spiked and alcohol fuelled through a host of gnarly punked up thrashers.

Favourite titles have to be ‘Murder At Boggy Creek’ and ‘Cavern Of The Wraith’, but how can anyone argue with the sonic whipping provided by which reeks of 1983 / 84 with those sickly vocal spits and that racing, raving rhythm.

Elsewhere, ‘The Living Grave’ starts like old Iron Maiden then becomes a speed metal holocaust, and the title track is Metallica circa Kill ’Em All married with Motörhead on speed. Meanwhile, closer ‘Snowblind In Texas’ is an unhealthy dose of black ‘n’ roll streaked with a wild, fizzing solo and all-round vicious instrumentation.

Everything about Sadistic Force is frenzied, scathing and fed upon all that heavy metal should be about; attitude, speeding dynamics, thumping percussion, a seething bass, wild guitars and vocal puking straight from Hell. If early 80s W.A.S.P. was fucked by Venom, this would be the unholy result.

Neil Arnold

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