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FERAL
To Usurp The Thrones

Transcending Obscurity (2024)
Rating: 8/10

Album number four from Sweden’s Feral offers more of that HM-2 consistency we’ve come to expect. Since the band’s 2011 debut full-length Dragged To The Altar, the combo has served up lashings of buzzsaw metal that takes influence from the masters of the field: Carnage, Grave and Dismember.

There’s nothing fancy going on here, and nor particularly macabre, just good old catchy butchery. At its worst you could argue that the familiarity means this album could easily become a chore, but Feral is adept at creating colossal melodies and gargantuan grooves which strike akin to great whips.

When I first heard ‘Stripped Of Flesh’ several months ago I was astounded at the sheer brutality the track offered, a bestial thrashing buzzsaw cacophony slipping into classic Entombed aided by the rowdy vocal chops of David Nilsson. ‘Bound To The Dead’ follows suit, a raging behemoth grinding ravenously with its lethal axe and bass work.

A lot of the material here is aggressive and delivered with frothing pace as the drums of Roger Markström punch through the gnashing framework, particularly on opening cut ‘To Drain The World Of Light’. At their heaviest, and possibly doomiest, Feral craft the monstrous riffage which opens ‘Vile Malediction’, a personal favourite that maintains the mid-tempo mood yet streaked with melodic soloing.

Another chugging monstrosity is ‘Phantoms Of Antiquity’, as again the drums pound with measured ferocity. But of the 11 tracks on display there’s not a rotten egg in sight. The rather brief ‘Soaked In Blood’ is a mid-90s groove machine that’s simple, direct and burly, while ‘Deformed Mentality’ is a wild flailing heap of thrashing death punctuated by crazed solos.

You’ll get treated to a bit of everything here as Feral sits comfortably in that recognisable Swedish style and yet still they manage to sever limbs with those buzzing torrents. Good on them.

Neil Arnold

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