First Strike for Spiritual Renewance

Finally it got waxed, with a cover of master Moyen! So is there anything here that Black/Thrash lovers haven’t heard yet? The answer is Yes! Most of the time the riffs are inspired by the ol’ good Teutonic Thrash bands, but the guitar sounds somehow unique, although the sludge and rawness that can be found here in the correct proportions. While most of the time the music is fast and violent Thrash. More “dramatic” mid paced parts can be found here, but they sound decent and very strong. Another element that turns this album utterly aggressive is Iscariah voice, which reminds of Destroyer from Nocturnal Breed.

The drummer did a great work and he doesn’t play simple as fuck Punkish beats and knows how and when to play. Another strong side of this album in my opinion is the lyrics, that aren’t so wise or profound, but still interesting and fit the mood of the music perfectly. In my opinion – there isn’t even 1 weak song out of the 9 that can be found here, but my personal highlight is “1942”, which features lyrics that actually make me shiver when I listen to this song. When all is said and done – it seems that Iscariah’s decision to leave Immortal was a good one, since it created 1 of the better bands in Norway and an album that stands in the same line with “Black Thrash Attack” and “No Retreat… No Surrender”.

Ok, when talking about thrash metal, the 80s is dead and gone: Metallica suck hard, Megadeth suck harder, Slayer spends their time touring with shitty bands, and the mighty Teutonic masters release album upon album of generic music, and don’t get me started on this new wave of awful “retro” thrash bands. So anyway, during one of my internet roaming sessions, I came across Dead to this World’s “First Strike For Spiritual Renewance”, the band’s 2007 full-length debut, and after merely two listens, I was in love with it, and went straight to the local metal dealer and bought the album. It must have been the clever use of power chords that won me over, using them in a way that still sounds original, I mean come on...metal should have exhausted the nearly endless combination's of power chords by now.

"I, The Facilitator" starts off with a ripping chainsaw riff, tight thrash drums and the shrieking voice of Iscariah. Just straightforward pounding savagery, no fancy tricks or melodic riffs, just pure adrenaline inducing metal. And oddly, enough a highly exotic sounding guitar solo that I really can’t place geographically speaking. This is one of those albums that doesn’t contain a single bad track, whilst still remaining varied: you have the fast and relentless tracks that with little or no pauses and slower more sinister songs like "Hammer of The Gods". One more quality is that DTTW know when to end a song, allowing more space for the lengthy epic number, "Hammer of The Gods.” Besides, you don’t need 10 minutes to get the message of "Goatpower" out.

Supreme necromancer Iscariah writes from the heart. The music here is well thought out, not just a collection of half-arsed riffs thrown down in week of binge drinking and hurried equalizing. He also possesses a vicious shrieking voice that fits somewhere between black metal and the shouted vocals of thrash metal; it’s just plain ugly, in the best way possible, think early Sodom. It’s almost like DTTW meant to write the most aggressive and adrenaline inducing metal of this generation without being pretentious. For this reason "First Strike For Spiritual Renewance" is the album of choice when I do some heavy exercising.

Now, Kvitrafn playing thrash? Seems odd in light his earlier work with renowned black metal outfit Gorgoroth, and his ambient-folk projects, but in fact he does it very well, without being the "one trick pony" that keeps a constant speedy polka beat. Kvitrafn employs a deadly arsenal of precision fills and odd, yet highly interesting time signatures; although now departed from the band, he really is a character of his own when it comes to drumming.

The production is fat and contains just enough dirt and intensity, just enough sludge that fits these anthems to goat supremacy. You can hear every instrument clearly on this album, it has a sense of balance and you can even hear a few slaps on the bass too.
Guitars sound like the bastard child of the first Deicide album and Sodom‘s Agent Orange, deadly lethal and highly head-bangable!

The lyrics deserve great praise too, I can`t resist the subtle imperial vibe of album closer "Hammer of The Gods" with "Cut out their tongues, remove their sons and daughters, for they do not know their ways through pain". It is written with intelligence and goes great together with this campaign of hate and violence. "Black steel sharpens the landscapes" from penultimate track “To Free Death Upon Them” and other narrations of hellish visions are brilliant.

I know that this sounds like an all praise marathon but really, "FSFSR" really is one of the greatest surprises of 2007 and highly infectious too. There really are no downsides with this album (if you like this kind of music), just an aural assault of high octane, brutal and ugly blackened-thrash metal, which without second thoughts put them in the same league of quality black-thrash as Nifelheim, Aura Noir and Destroyer666.
Buy with confidence and vote misanthropy!!!

Thanks to Ross for correcting this review.