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BUNKER 66
Portraits Of Dismay

Dying Victims Productions (2023)
Rating: 8/10

It’s not often that I review compilation albums but this one is essential. With cover art that nods towards Sodom’s classic 1986 release Obsessed By Cruelty, Portraits Of Dismay is the work of prolific Italian black / speed metal act Bunker 66, a torrent of a trio that’s been in existence since 2007 and has issued four full-length albums and a vicious batch of underground split releases.

A lot of the band’s most splendidly satanic split offerings are collected here for an 18-track compilation that rips from start to finish. Within the wicked heap of seething thrash hymns you get raked by a handful of lethal cover versions too; Motörhead’s ‘Dr Rock’, Carnivore’s ‘Male Supremacy’, Discharge song ‘The Possibility Of Life’s Destruction’ and Convulsed tune ‘Psychopharmax Convulsions’. After these more familiar tracks have cemented themselves into your ear canals you get scorched by a sickening, scathing tirade of thorny aggression that results in a wave of sharp, direct metal plucked from the bands discography of death.

Opener ‘We Guys Are From Hell’ sums up the vile, hostile sound of Bunker 66. Hellish rivers of billowing black thrash carved from the blackened blood of old gods Sodom, Bathory, Destruction etc. is the order of the day here. One moment the band combines Judas Priest with Exciter (‘Tombatron & Tormentor’), and next there are sinister vintage Slayer chugs (‘The Merciless March’).

Bunker 66 dwells within the pitch black corners of 1983, soaking itself in oil and alcohol before rabidly constructing a crude pentagram illuminated by flickering candles. Riffs are tight yet dirty, the percussion is filthy and punky and the trickling bass acts as a rusty spine. Whether it’s your ‘Global Thermonuclear War’, your ‘Winds Of Damnation’, or your ‘Mellhammer’, this compilation joyously treads over familiar cracks while bringing its own fizzing, apocalyptic vim.

There is so much wickedness here to revel in but one cannot help but sacrifice a goat to the nefarious forays of ‘Pandemonial Storms’, ‘Sulphurous Lust’ and ‘Army Of The Dark’, a trio of belters expertly crafted for nights by the graves. Portraits Of Dismay is a whip-cracking joy ride into the fiery pits where the flames dance hotter with each rancid anthem.

Neil Arnold

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