Unchain the Wolves

If someone has never heard any metal music before, I'd point them directly to Destroyer 666's "Unchain the Wolves". I know for a lot of metal fans, it's a slow progressive journey into the vast universe of metal via acquired tastes and slowly pushing the envelope. When I was younger, I started off with Metallica, moved on to Slayer, and generally moved to all the gateway black metal bands before venturing further underground. But "Unchain the Wolves" not only delivers a fantastic sound, it also captures the very essence of what metal should be. It's an absolute crash course, cram session of what truly is metal - from the music itself to the more "meta" aspects of it.

Musically, "Unchain the Wolves" falls mostly into the trash metal category, but the vocals are harsh enough to really differentiate itself from typical thrash metal bands. K.K. Warslut finds a balance between guttural shrieks and growls. The song structures features a ton of melodic riffs and varying tempos. The first track, "Genesis to Genocide", starts off slow to ease into the album but is filled with melodic guitar passages that keep you engaged. The tracks that are around five minutes or less like "Australian and Anti-Christ" and "Damnation's Pride" take things into full throttle with plenty of hooks and catchy verses. The lead guitars have a huge presence - just before something may appear to drag on for too long, a memorable guitar solo brazenly makes its entrance.

The real masterpiece is of course the title track. It has by far one of the most epic introductions I've ever heard. The thundering guitars slowly build in intensity and gets suspenseful. There are some light synthesizers in the background and samples of soldiers marching, combined with spoken words to really create that immersion. This is something you'd listen to before a great battle or encountering some huge challenge. It absolutely pumps you up. After the track finally winds up, you're greeted with some bold vocal executions and riffs full of bravado. It only gets more intense as the song goes on.

A lot of what I described here is easily found in plenty of other bands and albums, but where Destroyer 666 differentiates itself is through their passion and spirit. I've never heard an album that sounds more destructive while being packed with bravado, the perfect soundtrack to the ultimate rampage and slaughter. The large white wolf on the cover is absolutely congruent with the overall feel of the music. There are no campy parts, cheesy ballads, or things that make you cringe. None of the tracks have any weird sections that make you wonder why they put that in there. "Unchain the Wolves" is simply something that gets you pumped and energized. The band holds nothing back and they execute in such an authentic way that it just feels so real. There aren't a lot of hidden or nuanced sections to discover upon subsequent listens - what you hear is what you get, but what you get is bound to hook you right away.

The true spirt of metal is 100% captured in this album.

Australia has a generous array of extreme metal bands to enjoy from almost all eras of metal music's lifespan, with the golden age spanning from the 80s to the 90s, not to mention some stellar releases at the very beginning of the 21st century.

But specifically In the year of 1997, something utterly amazing happened. One of the strongest career debuts regarding full length albums, and one of the greatest extreme metal albums ever to come out of Australia was released; Unchain the Wolves by Destroyer 666. And honestly this isn't me worshipping this album religiously, I hold these opinions based on genuine reasons and observations about this album compared to other metal releases in the same vein, Australian or otherwise. And so I shall discuss and explain these reasons and observations.

First off, the band conveys properly strong and solid messages on this album. The messages are portrayed in an extremely punky fashion. "FUCK YOU JESUS! SATAN, SODOMY AND GETTING SHITFACED RULES!" and "WE ARE WOLF SPIRITED, FUCKEN AUSSIE CUNTS AND PROUD OF IT!" are the messages that are previously mentioned. Its simple, to the point, and any Aussie, Satanist, Non Conformist, Aussie Satanist Non Conformist can easily pick up what they are putting down. Not to mention, its also aggressive and controversial, which definitely helps!

This album's greatness is also heavily set in its musical aspects, not just its main theme and atmosphere. Its frustrating because I'm not even sure where to begin (or do I?)! Lets start off with its influences. If you listen carefully, what you can hear are some major inspirations from some of the finest the 80s extreme metal scene had to offer. Slayer, Celtic Frost, Hobbs angel of Death and Destruction provided them with the unrelenting and intense thrashy rage in this record. Bathory's Under the Sign and Blood Fire Death albums show its presence within those slower, groovier, glorious and epic moments of the album in their slow tempo tracks. Hellhammer both inspire their doomy and depressive low moments in the album, and at the same time, their raw anti Christian, Satan worshipper punk attitude just as well. Those utterly amazing guitar solos are most likely in some way a tribute to Quorthon's lead guitar work throughout the span of 1980s Bathory too, but in a method that is more melodic than it is shreddy.

Destroyer 666 take all these influences and with their talent and creativity (which is another big reason for this albums greatness), they craft their songs to perfection, exploring many different ways to demonstrate the heaviness, melodic prowess, catchiness, power, speed and unrelenting aggression of their iconic sound. The whole album is simply heavy as FUCK, the lead guitars show plenty of beautiful melodic prowess and the aggressive, bold and punchy guitar riffs and basslines also show melodic aspects albeit in subtlety. The choruses are painfully catchy, much like a drug addiction or a disease, but in a good way! My favorite choruses are most definitely from the tracks Australian and Antichrist, Satan's Hammer, Unchain the Wolves, and Damnations Pride. Try to NOT sing along to those with all your heart you crazy bastards!

Speaking of singing along: Lyrical aspects and Vocals. Lyrically, the Front man and guitarist of D666, Keith Warslut, sounded much like a drunkard going on a dragged on half assed inebriated rant (which admittedly, quite suits this album), mostly about how God is pretty Bad and how the Devil sets him free, but sometimes he writes some pretty damn fucking good lines here and there! Some examples being: "AUSTRALIAAAAN AND ANTICHRIST!", "The Tyranny of the Inevitable, Stands upon us like a cross on our graves.", "Some say that I cant see... BUT I KNOW THAT IM BLIIIND!". Vocally, those black metal shrieks are most definitely also influenced by the great Quorthon just as so, there are some death metal growls sprinkled around this album too just to spice it up a bit, I also love the chorus chants in Unchain the wolves, especially in the chorus chants in the title track, which I consider to be the most epic moment of this 50 minute Blackened Thrash metal epic.

Hails to you Destroyer 666, your incredible work has personally inspired me as an amateur bedroom guitarist, who aspires to play some extreme shit, listening to the screams from a raging legion of an audience, blasting hellfire and damnation through the Eureka Flag draped Marshall stacks. Hopefully soon this dream shall come true. Hopefully soon...


As always, If you are a false... YOU ARE NOT AN UNCHAINED WOLF!!!

Anyone who listened to this album after having heard Deströyer 666's previous material was surely surprised by the musical evolution they show in this work, from the very first moment we can appreciate a significant increase in the quality of certain compositional aspects, especially if we take into account that the sound D666 inherited from the band "Bestial Warlust" which was closer to the subgenre known as "war metal".

Deströyer's debut 666 shows its change from the beginning, it starts slowly, giving space to the song to develop in an unstoppable crescendo that finally culminates with a powerful riff that immerses us completely in the massacre that represents the middle part of the song, which culminates with an epic and melodic ending that shows the concern that has been given to the songwriting in this album, this has only been "Genesis to Genocide" which is one of the two most immense songs on the album, the other is coincidentally the later, "Australian and Antichirst", which has a totally more aggressive and catchy tone, no big epic melodies but a succession of intense riffs led by the furious chanting of these Australians. These two songs represent the high point of the work and mark the two types of songs we will find on this album. On the one hand, we have epic compositions that are based on slow and atmospheric measures at the beginning, passing through changing rhythms that go from a medium aggressive rhythm through melodic passages that lead the composition to a breakdown that precedes an epic finale, the songs that do this apart from the mentioned one would be "Unchain the Wolves" and "Tyranny of the Inevitable", the first one is almost at the level of "Genesis to Genocide" but its extreme similarity makes me never lean towards the homonymous theme, besides the intro is weaker. As for "Tyranny..." it's probably the weakest piece on the album, almost a pseudo-ballad, it loses any kind of direction it might have had, and feels like 7 minutes that go nowhere.

Then we have the faster songs, as I said before "Australian and Anti-Christ" is the highest point of this kind of songs and maybe the only one that can get close to the quality of this one is "Damnation's Pride" as I would say they share the catchiest choruses of the whole album, and it is very surprising the capacity that Deströyer 666 shows in moving so well in these two types of compositions and how the amount of harmonic changes make the album feel dynamic, although it doesn't avoid being boring at times.

And speaking of boring, the final song "Onward to Arktoga" is a reworked version of the outro from their first demo, this one goes from two minutes to five, and in addition to the melody and melancholy that the original contained and still persists in this version, they wanted to give it a more atmospheric component, also cyclical with the intermittent sound of the bells that resounded at the beginning of the album, but it feels incredibly long for being only three minutes, so an extra point for the atmosphere created and less three points for how boring it is.

By the way, in several reviews of this album I have read several opinions about the lyrics of this album and it seems that everybody agrees that they are very good, some even referring to them as "poetry".

"A world without war is like a city without whores"

"I remember just last night
We drunk and we fucked whores"

"Don't seek your trust in fools, not your love in whores"

Modern poetry I guess.

I never really paid much attention to this great work of art. I have always listened to it, but it was not until a few days back that I sat with my earphones and listened to it quite intensively. From the very beginning of the first track, the intensity and the gloomy atmosphere blew me away.

It starts with a sound of a tolling church-bell. This style reminded me of doom metal elements used by bands such as Black Sabbath and Nortt. This adds a subtle experimental element to the music, but it also has a very good atmospheric character that functions very well within a psychological context. It is important to realize that this context deconstructs itself and that it is not psychological and aesthetical respectively, but rather an interwoven subject matter that addresses various conscious and subconscious aspects.

The vocals are raw and powerful in the sense that it is a fixed style, but not dull at all. Vocals, to me, are always one of the main aspects in music that determine the make-or-break for the artist. Vocals should be intensive and convincing. That is what the vocalist achieves here with excellence. The guitar-riffs and the drums are the flesh that keeps the whole thing together, not to mention the brilliant guitar-solos. The riffs are well constructed and ensured a very tight concept with which the band conjures up a whole variety of complexities. The drums contribute a very good background rhythm and the combination of tonal and atonal elements are unique in its own right. On every track the instruments as a whole functions as an adrenaline-like medium that is not predictable at all.

The music also has a nice speed. The alteration between slower and faster parts are so nicely packed together that the slower pieces functions as faster pieces in its own right. The faster pieces as such are unnerving in the sense that it has a surrounding primitive aura that functions as an esoteric vehicle. The passengers of this vehicle are from the deepest abyss of the human psyche and have much more than just one thing to say.

This album is a brilliant work of art and is a must-have for all fans of black metal.

Returning, but this time with a full band lineup, K.K. Warslut continues with his pilgrimage to stir the spirit of Western man. This time around however, the tone of the music is slightly more melancholic, possibly reflecting a heightened awareness in the mind of the songwriter of the discrepancy between his internal mythologies and the reality of the outside world.

At once more thrashy in rhythm and also more melodic in a conventional sense, Unchain the Wolves sees the band giving the music more space and less intensity of speed, allowing for numerous build-up sections which bridge from the old slowly into the new. Drumming takes on a more straight 4/4 rock feel for much of it and bass often strays from simply assuming the root note of each section to engaging in a bit of exploration. Melody is provided most strongly by relatively minimalistic lead guitar work as rhythm guitar moves chords along underneath with the prevailing rhythm

This album represents a regression in black metal from Violence is the Prince of this World but it acts as a kind of synthesis between this newer form of metal and older forms and even progressive rock, somehow without assuming an lowest common denominator combination of each style. Rather, it injects a unique, epic and progressive atmosphere of combat-romanticism through a base of various musical styles, and lets this work on the listener in place of the often hypnotic ambience of much black metal and the sprawling dissonent riff salads of much death metal and grindcore. Highly Recommended

An underground metal band which writes subtly brilliant minimalist epics about drinking, fucking, and killing? How irresistable is that?

I just have to say that this is a personal favorite album of mine, and the somewhat inflated rating might reflect this a little bit. This isn't quite high art I guess, but seriously, who would care? If you let that distract you from headbanging your brains out to this album, you need to pull the splintered crucifix out of your ass and get the hell out of metal.

Although most will classify this as black/thrash (a term I think is woefully inadequate), I definetely feel this album is written entirely on a very solid foundation of 80s thrash (or speed, or whatever), but it's thrash that has learned some valuable conceptual lessons from the black metal of the 90s, most importantly the epic, melodic (but not mellow!!) mindset. Even though there is a great range of different song styles here including some very basic thrashers, the overall feel of the album is monstrously epic, and just fits together brilliantly, harkening back to that great classic, Bathory's Blood Fire Death. Those devastating simple leads on several tracks here might be traced back to some of the early Burzum material (Key to the Gate, Lost Wisdom), but here, the technique is plopped in entirely different structures, and it works fantastically. And then there's definetely some stuff here that's purely D666. This can be particularly seen in many of the transitions between riffs, sections, movements, motifs, whatever you want to call it. Nobody else can pull this stuff off with such finesse. Like many great albums, you get the feeling that this just must have been written before, it's just so obvious, and so good, how could this have been overlooked?

I guess that's really the art here, though it be regressive art. This album fills a hole in the metal catalog that really needed to be filled. Essentially it updates thrash with new ideas and techniques and the end product is a strikingly enjoyable piece of work.

This is unquestionably the peak of D666's career. Although they write some catchy and spirited music on some of their other releases, there's just something special here that they never matched, before or since. Any of the many trend hoppers who have heard and enjoyed Phoenix Rising, buy this now, it's about 10 times better! (and quite different as well).

The production is almost perfect for this sort of super evil thrash album although the guitars could maybe have used a little more distinction and the kick drum is nearly inaudible in seveal places. This gives the music a slightly weak feel, but it's played with such obvious spirit and rage that the minor production flaws don't bother at all, and the spite filled vocals sound perfect!

A little note on the lyrics. Many have commented about the apparent lack of intelligence of this band, probably mostly due to their name (which by the way, will make perfect wonderful sense once you actually hear this album). Personally I think the majority of the lyrics on here are quite well written, and even profound, particularly for a band with "denim vests and a sordid past...raging from hades in leather and spikes."

This has been a little rambling. That's because I'm a little drunk, which I think is more than appropriate for the subject matter...

Band: Destroyer 666
Album: Unchain the Wolves


This is Destroyer 666's debut album and it is indeed worthy of great praise. Destroyer 666 blend all different types of metal together to make themselves a colossus in the metal world. This album is more Black/Thrash, but it still has a little Death mixed in for good measure. The songs themselves are angry and spit in the face of all that is good. There are two epics on here, and the rest of the songs aren't slouches either.

Genesis To Genocide opens the album and it is the first epic to appear on here. This track is just massive. It incorporates all Destroyer 666's influences. I especially like the bass work in this song. It's not your average "single root note of power chord" bass, but it does something interesting things.

Austrailian and Anti-Christ is a short, menacing little number. It starts off with the sounds of a witch burning? with chants of confess! confess! and then a nice little "fuck you!" The song itself is consisted of some blast beats at the beginning, then picks up a nice thrash pace. The chorus is especially catchy.

Satan's Hammer and Tyranny are good songs, especially Tyranny, but I just don't see anything special here. Tyranny has some nice vocal work and acoustic guitar. Satan's Hammer's chorus is pretty good. Come to think of it, Tyranny kicks a lot of ass.

Six Curses From a Spiritual Wasteland is vicious. It begins with furious blast beats and hatefilled vocals. It has some real nice thrashy riffs too.

The title track, Unchain the Wolves, is the other epic of the album, and it is gloriously evil. It begins with the sound of a horn being done by guitar and then goes into a furious Thrash riff which leads into a slow, droning melodic guitar part, mixed in with keyboards and spoken word vocals. Then the action kicks in. The first riff appears again and is followed by a raging guitar solo from Hades itself. I love the lyrics in this song. There are 4 guitar solos in this song! The second part of the song is a mid-paced riff which really exemplifies D666's ability to make you bang your head and kick your ass.

The last song, Damnation's Pride, is my personal favorite of the album. It starts with a furious thrash riff and pounding drum hell. The chorus in this song is just catchy as hell.

Overall this album is just fuckin great. The vocals are on the BM side, and they are absolutely furocious and hateful. I urge any fan of Metal to pick this album up, no matter if you like Black, Death, Thrash, Power, etc. You must own this album.

BEWARE OF THE LEGIONS OF SATAN!!!!

The name Deströyer 666 isn't exactly brilliant, and I thought it would turn out to be some rather generic extremist black or death band, but it is anything but. The music of Destroyer 666 is a lupine chimera of the best elements of classic black, death, and thrash metal. It transcends metal genres and blends them all without hitting a lowest common denominator, and really embodies the spirit of metal.

Unchain the Wolves leans a bit to the black side of metal, but isn't recognizable as such, or really anything else that has been defined so far. The production is quite raw and grim, but it doesn't obfuscate any of the elements and makes this album feel particularly savage. The vocals are raspy, and the guitar is reminiscient of early Bathory at times, but mostly goes in all kinds of new directions, blending thrashiness and melodicism, tying them together with wild, dissonant solos. The drumming is great, and the basswork is bruising.

The songs don't fall into the hypnoticism of black metal, the chaos of death metal, or the relentlessness of thrash, but are laid out in a more epic manner. Nevertheless, they manage to have some excellent, classic anthemic moments as well. The lyrics are barbaric in sentiment, yet are intelligently and creatively written. They're blatantly offensive to all followers of slave morality, praising the avatar of Satan in tableaus of blasphemous evil and lashing out at both the church and modern politically correct egalitarian dogma, with lines proclaiming such things as "I'm not ashamed to be white!" There are too many quotable lines in the album, and I'm afraid if I listed one, which I'm tempted to, I'd have to list many more.

This album is undoubtedly an overlooked legend. If you're a fanatic of thrash, black, or death, or just metal in general, you must get this, it is a necessity.

Of all Destroyer 666's releases so far, this is still the one which always sends me into a flurry of destructive behaviour. Seething with raw energy, and far less compact and polished than their last two masterpieces, this one simply seeks to pulverize the listener, but only after lulling them into a false sense of security through epic interludes scattered throughout.

"Genesis To Genocide" is an ample display of D666's talents. Building from a brooding quiet synth intro into a searing display of metallic majesty, it's intensity level peaks around halfway before settling into a skullcrushing melodic riff which seems to stretch out into infinity. Finishing around the 10 minute mark, this spectacular-yet-simple epic passage fades into a clash of battle. "Australian And Anti-christ" emerges from the conflict, burning down everything in it's path in a blizzard of thrash which has been known to cause severe injuries to wimps and posers. A true black-metal anthem.

"Satan's Hammer" is another iron gauntlet to the face, throwing classic thrash riffs all over the place. Then "Tyranny Of The Inevitable" returns to the slower, meandering pace, almost a ballad in it's execution, yet it remains stunningly heavy.

The next four songs form a rollercoaster of thrashing, crushing, pulverizing metal. "Six Curses From A Spiritual Wasteland" and "Damnation's Pride" are bulldozers of blistering death-thrash, while the jaw-dropping epic "Rome Wasn't Destroyed In A Day" leading into the violence of the title track is one of the most amazing transitions i've ever heard on a metal CD. A sneering invective against all things christian is spat out over a thrash-attack of the highest order, with the anthemic chorus - "Summon the werewolf blood, summon the wolves to war/unchain the wolves, unchain the wolves... set the night on fire!" resounding with an exceptionally vicious delivery.

"Onward To Arktoga" is a reworked version of the outro instrumental track from the demo, Six Songs With The Devil. This expanded version easily crushes the original, loping along at the pace of a funeral march, it manages to wind the album down enough to allow one to calm down enough not to break any household items. A distant bell (a church bell? irony never sounded so good!) rings sporadically for the last few minutes, and then... suddenly, it's over. And the wolves are out there in the night, hunting for fresh victims.