HOBBS’ ANGEL OF DEATH
Heaven Bled
Hells Headbangers (2016)
Rating: 9.5/10
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Back in 1988 I saw an album cover that stuck with me forever. The band had the unusual moniker of Hobbs’ Angel Of Death and depicted frontman Peter Hobbs clad in leather jacket and with a menacing look standing amid the flickering glow of hellish flames.
This was the album art for Hobbs’ Angel Of Death’s debut self-titled opus; a raging thrash masterpiece. And yet in spite of such a masterful metal creation, it wouldn’t be until 1995 that the band would re-emerge with Inheritance. However, by that time the genre of heavy metal had begun to suffer as new trends enveloped the world, and those flames and leather of the 80s seemed an almost cringe worthy premise.
Now, though, we’ve come full circle to some extent and 2016 marks the full-length return of this enigmatic Australian band. Accompanied by three musicians who’ve all joined over the last couple of years, the rather fiery Peter Hobbs has once again delivered a roasting hot lump of powerful hell metal that – in my opinion – matches 1988’s sizzling debut for atmosphere and raging metal fury.
Hobbs’ Angel Of Death offer up an hour-long molten metal experience that now makes me realise just how generic the likes of Slayer have become, because this is some utterly pure and energetic thrashing madness with devilish power metal and trad’ metal overtones.
First up, we have Peter Hobbs’ aggressive snarl; something untainted by time and still as potent as ever. But when coupled with the feisty structures herein, the quartet has coughed up one of the finest releases of the year and an album with enough devilish and deadly ingredients to bring order to a genre decidedly lacking in passion.
But these guys don’t just stop at hungry heavy metal with thrashing sugar. Instead, they dabble with black metal forays as well as black thrash chaos; wayward soloing cavorts with colder structures and angular prowess. While in the next instance we have a melodic, steel gallop fused with a meaty, chugging trudge of evil. No wonder these guys have been hiding for over 20 years – Peter Hobbs has no doubt been in cohorts with the Devil in order to master another apocalyptic remedy for the digital age.
We get beaten to death by 12 utterly brilliant tunes, kick-started off with the brutal, fast-paced anguish of ‘Il mostro di Firenzi’ which somehow fuses the icy menace of, say, Mayhem with Slayer, coupled with the deadly Teutonic invasion of Sodom and Destruction. If this had emerged in the 80s it would have been deemed a ground-breaking slab of extreme metal hostility, and more so had it emerged in the latter part of the 90s when numerous black metal bands were experimenting with icier, dissonant strains. But there’s still no denying it’s utterly compelling thrash aggression.
This continues with the hammering ‘Walk My Path’, complete with unexpected smatterings of traditional metal melody, the windswept valleys of ‘Final Feast’ with its atmospheric arctic intro and then manic destructive thrash charge, and the monstrous cacophony that is ‘Drawn & Quartered’; the band finding a strange pocket inside the deadly realms of Venom, Destruction, Celtic Frost, Bulldozer, old Voivod, Slayer and goodness knows what else.
People continuously speak about veteran band’s now trying to recreate that old school feel, but with Heaven Bled it’s as if Hobbs’ haven’t left 1988.; forget about 1995, this third opus from the combo is as devastating as anything you’ll hear this side of the halcyon days of metal.
Fizzing, wild solos, an orgy of clambering, tumbling drums and threads of bellowing, billowing bass and all headed by Peter Hobbs’ gnarly, hellish tones means that tracks such as ‘Suicide’, ‘Son Of God’, ‘Hypocrites’ and the title track are pure fuckin’ Armageddon when it comes to heavy metal expression. Find me a faster track than ‘Son Of God’ that has been released this side of 1991 and I’ll hand over my soul. Hats off to Simon Wizen for some of the best leads I’ve heard this side of Hell and Iago Bruchi’s drums have enough bone and steel to manifest a monstrous wall of apocalyptic noise.
With Heaven Bled Hobbs’ Angel Of Death have stolen 2016 from under our noses; crafting a cauldron of such intensity and belligerence that by the time you’ve finished listening you’ll have realised that this ungodly posse has in fact constructed a boring machine that has drilled itself back to 1988 and ripped up the rule book. Even the Devil is frightened of this one.
Neil Arnold
