Berzerker Legions

Whenever I give this album a spin, I am experiencing the exact train of thought. "Hey, this is not so bad, why don't I really like this band?" Three songs later: "Oh yeah, I remember." Exmortem are awesome players and musicians, it's too bad that they don't really compose truly memorable and impressive songs. The brutality is spot on, the recording details are carefully caressing all the genre's peculiarities, as it is to be expected from loyal and passionate fans. But oh my, these songs roll by like the clouds and I don't roll with them (Yes, that was a Dream Theater reference, my little chickens!).

To this day I don't really know how the metal scene as a whole feels about massively triggered, high clickety double bass drums. I for one am a huge fan of this auditory feature but I can't really criticise anyone that wants to declare it as inauthentic. Because, let's face it, it kinda is. But so is the porn genre of shemale milf cops and you won't hear me saying a bad word about those either. The snare of "Berzerker Legions" on the other side is a bit irritating, for it sounds triggered and not triggered at the same time, as if someone couldn't decide between raw real life and pro tool steroids, resulting in a snare sound that offers the worst of both worlds, banging away cheap and fake sounding swings that do not make me happy. The style of the drummer is as as technical and professional as it is unremarkable. He is fast as fuck and I could not identity him in a sea of drummers. Sorry, dude!

The riffs on "Berzerker Legions" do sound like you would expect them to sound from Deeds of Flesh fans. Fast, chaotic, technical, more interested in clubbing you like a baby seal than taking you out to a nice dinner. Completely understandable, but a lot of possible connections between music and listener can get lost that way. The riffs of Exmortem do sound like brutal and often technical death metal, but they don't really sound like themselves. They get a rise out of me for a few minutes until my lizard brain remembers that there are actually other death metal bands with pissed off tremolo attacks out there that do not sound that different. This is actually a bit tragic, because these guys are no hacks on their instruments. They are kinda like the death metal version of Grief of Emerald. Or maybe Grief of Emerald are the black metal version of Exmortem. So much talent for nothing.

The vocals are not really growled or grunted, they are more fashioned in the style of vulgar, overtly angry death metal yells of the early nineties. Like a hardcore singer in a wifebeater shirt that had too many snorts of whiskey and just lost his beloved pitbull "Spike" to cancer. That is quite a nostalgic feature for a more modern album, but no effective tool to save or just atmospherically polish this album. There is no real greatness here.

Sometimes I use this album as background music because the chaotic aggression still works in a way and I like blast beats, even if they have a shitty sound. But I would be okay with never listening to it ever again.

20 years ago, with the album "Berzerker Legions", Exmortem attracted the attention of the foreign media, which eventually led to signing a contract with Earache Records. None of the original line-up took part in the recording of the Danes' third album (although guitarist Kolle wrote about half of the material). Instead, we had guitarist/bassist Sigtyr, who was assisted by Simon (later on vocals for Horned Almighty) and Reno - a drummer who would later go on to join Dimmu Borgir and Hate Eternal.

Today we can get to know this piece of European death metal history thanks to the reissue, which was released in May 2021 thanks to Emanzipation Productions. How does this peculiar response of the Old Continent to the extreme sounds presented by Cannibal Corpse and Hate Eternal defend itself after so many years? Unexpectedly well. "Berzerker Legions" is 11 tracks closing in around 32 minutes - so it's fast and totally uncompromising. The band starts with a short intro, which still has some electronic elements, but with the first sounds of the title track the band switch into fifth gear, by simultaneously pressing the nitro button. Reno Kiilerich takes off into space and basically does not slow down until the very end - what an incredible precision of this musician!

Vocally it's flawless (nice screams in "Terror Mundi"), and Sigtyr's work: truly impressive. We have a lot of interesting, technical plays and most of the riffs are able to catch your attention (I liked the ones from "The Grim Wrecker", "Berzerker Legions" and "Dawn of Revelations" the most). Towards the end the band stops all this madness with a bit simpler playing, and in such "The Revolutionary Soul" they even play a bit of thrash metal. And I must admit that the ending was quite refreshing after this whole slaughter and one wishes there were more such changes on the album. Becouse although there are some changes of pace on "Berzerker Legions", more variety is missing. 9 out of 11 tracks is a technical carnage, which is impressive, but at the same time can drain the listener of his last strength.

If you are a fan of Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel or Angelcorpse, and you like the last album of Vader (the short "Solitude in Madness"), then you should familiarize yourself with the Danes' discography. Reissue of "Berzerker Legions" can be a good start: it's interesting and still good sounding material. It is available both digitally and on CD and vinyl (three colours to choose from). So what? Get out your credit cards and get ready to get hit by this concrete block!

Originally written for www.metalside.pl

Exmortem's third album, Berzerker Legions is perhaps their least interesting and most straightforward, but that their nadir is still a relatively good time speaks to how solid they've always been. Never quite a dull moment if you like your death metal blasted and relentless, but what I thought was the most curious about this one was the lineup. After seven years, not a single original member remained...Exmortem now revolved around the Dejected in Obscurity guitarist Sigtyr, and he hooked up with a pair of total powerhouses to record this. One is Reno Killerich, who by that point hadn't quite carved out a name for himself as the temporary Dimmu Borgir drummer, but had played on Panzerchrist Soul Collector; and the other, vocalist Simon 'Smerte' Petersen, who may be known to you for fronting the excellent Horned Almighty, where his wretched growls are really a lot more impressive than he is here, but not so much that you can't make a distinction.

With Killerich, you know this thing is going to be a blasterpiece, and to that extent you won't be let down. A lot of faster paced material circa Morbid Angel/Hate Eternal with a fibrous level of distortion that tears out a gajillion tremolo picked riffs, some of which are assembled catchier than I might have dreaded. There is notably less variation than on Dejected in Obscurity, so I felt entirely dependent on the riffing patterns and vocals to carry the material, and thankfully it succeeds, with the caveat that it's not the sort of record I want to spin often or in its entirety. Honestly, I feel similar to a lot of the Panzerchrist offerings, in that the disc is meticulously constructed aggression which simply doesn't rise above its brutality, its genre standards, to walk with the giants of the genre. Just a lot of intense drumming and traditional death metal riffing with a ghastly vocal presence that sometimes gets lost in the barbarism if you're not paying close enough attention. I just find Smerte's attack far more effective over the black/punk or black/rock leanings of his currently active band, but if you listen in you can here he's got a great sustain to his growl and they seem to often throw a few filters on him which gives the album a somewhat futuristic/apocalyptic impression.

Berzerker Legions is quite unforgiving, and not always in a good way, so it suffers for the same reasons records by Diabolic, Krisiun or Malevolent Creation often fall into systemic dispassion...the real lack of a distinguished or resonant atmosphere. To this point, granted, the Danes had only put out two records that weren't exactly bastions of depth in songwriting, but this one further cemented them as third or fourth stringers on the European scene, and it just lacks the character of the better efforts. It could really use some great lead sequences or pulverizing breakdowns to help break up the speed. That said, it's a real neckbreaker and not at all a bad album to pick through if you really value intensity and couldn't care less about subtlety or song diversity. Beyond the intro it goes into nuclear overdrive, nothing nuanced or unique ever happening, just a load of repetition that makes use of Killerich's speed without ever teaching us why he's this fantastic, up and coming drummer beyond his ability to batter away for a half hour. And that's frankly just too much for this to match any of the other Exmortem full-lengths, and coupled with the forgettable cover image of bursting, incendiary bodies, its reasonable why this seems to have been entirely neglected.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com