Redesekration: The Gospel of Hatred and Apotheosis of Genocide

"Spill the dirty blood of Jesus"? Of course, this was exactly what I wanted to do today. Infernal War have funny ideas and they play a radical, enthusiastic and absolutely uncompromising form of black metal. The mix of brutal high-speed drumming, screaming guitars - solos from a sick brain not excluded - and restless shouting leads to a drastic attack against all that is holy and it even boggles the mind of non-holy people like me. This is definitely no record for sensitive minds and the question must be allowed whether it makes sense to present nothing else but permanent machine gun fire. For sure, diversity can kill the power of an album, but usually a iota of diversity does not do much harm. Nevertheless, the guys from Poland have better things to do than to think about different approaches. They celebrate their fury in the slaughterhouse and love to butcher everyone in view.

It's a little bit confusing that the album does not spread the typical black metal vibrations. Instead, it has a certain punk touch. Instead of performing the totalitarian approach that dominates the ferocious side of the darkest sub genre in general, Infernal War rather wallow in anarchic feelings. They destroy everything that could be described as music and from time to time they appear to me like spiritual brothers of Napalm Death. Believe me, it is not that easy to listen to the material from the beginning to the end, albeit no song suffers from obvious deficiencies. But the sheer brutality is somewhat tiring. The ultimate bombardment delivers an interesting facet, but only this facet and nothing else. Monotony on a high level, so to say - and don't ask me for highlights, because I cannot give you an answer. It's just an amazing bloodlust over 37 minutes.

The noisy production supports the mega-aggressive songs. I don't say that the mix suffers from imbalance, but it has a slightly annoying element. Whenever the formation decides to give full speed ahead (in one word: always), pure terror kills any kind of emotion and even the harshest way of proceeding should leave space for a minimum of feelings, right? We are still speaking about music and not about a mechanical mass production or something like that. Okay, the beginning of "Death's Evangelist" presents an unexpected leniency, but the band readjusts its arrangement immediately and everything goes right down into hell again. It is certainly an art in itself to fall victim to your own stubbornness without any cushioning. In addition, each and every song works and sets free an overdose of energy, radiation and devastation. Nevertheless, I wish the riffs would have more room to reveal their full potential. Be that as it may, if you want to listen to really f**king extreme metal, the technically competent "Redesekration..." should be your first choice.

Too few times have I heard a band capable of writing such ferocious music that the response is physical. Infernal War are capable of obtaining such a response. Upon hearing the opening track of "Redesekration" I immediately got Goosebumps!

This band is punishing, unrelenting, ferocious, focused and extremely talented.

Infernal War play a black metal similar to Marduk in that their approach to the genre is very straightforward. Their riffs are very simple, aggressive and percussive. The song structures are also simple, allowing the listener to be brutalized by an extremely focused and well packaged song and then moving on to another.

The musicianship is outstanding! The drums are powerful, extremely fast and focused on kicking your ass, rather than impressing you. The vocals are raspy, vicious and sung with conviction. The guitars are simple, catchy and, when it comes to solos, completely chaotic. There is no heavy use of melody, dual guitar-work and keyboards are entirely left out.

Bottom line: If you like "assault" style black metal (i.e. Marduk, Dark Funeral, etc.) check these guys out! The production might not be as good, but the music is at least as good, if not better!

After releasing their first album, Infernal War was considered by polish metalheads as one of the best Black Metal acts on the polish scene. With the second album IW proves its worth a place among the world's finest... and the most brutal bands of all time.

The short intro at the begining gives some time to hold on to something...as you wouldn't like to be literally blown away by the sheer brutality of this album. These two words best describe the nature of this release. I very well could end this review here, but for those who would like to know something more I'll continue.

Guitars create almost constant wall of sound which crushes the listener into the ground with the use of great riffs and insane solos. The bass does its part, ensuring nobody will be able to get up from his knees. But it's nothing compared to the performance of drums. It's almost impossible to imagine any musician could survive such a canonade of blast-beats without losing his arms. Truly Stormblast can stand in the first line of best drummers in the world. If that's not enough, Warcrimer delivers the most powerful and hateful growls ever heard in the genre.

As to production quality, everything is just right - all instruments are clearly audible creating very heavy, meaty and dirty sound.

Up to now it looked like this album had no drawbacks. Well, it has one, albeit a major one: due to the incredible tempos the album sometimes gets monotonous with its blastbeats and wall-of-sound guitars, lacking slowdowns. Although the last three songs are slower than the last (and better thanks to that), still, through the first half of the album you can find your thoughts drifting away sometimes.

But if you like it fast and brutal, you'll love this stuff. Definitely a must-buy.