Hutch checks out the latest horror filled offering from US Blackened Metallers, The Day Of The Beast, here’s what he thinks…

Newly signed to Prosthetic Records, Virginia Beach blackened death metallers The Day of the Beast’s fourth full-length is not one for summer evenings in the garden whilst drinking a crisp white vintage. This is nasty, snarling and designed to summon darkness. 

It’s their first release since 2017’s The Ultimate Cremation Pyre, and if you haven’t grasped what they sound like after these two album titles, you need your head cleaned out. This is 45 minutes of grotesque claws raking your back, filthy guttural roaring voices, searingly hot guitars and powerful drumming that could summon up old Nick himself. 

It’s an album that should give you nightmares. Each track revolves around its own specific tale or theme, with inspiration coming from the likes of Clive Barker, Bram Stoker, and Lovecraft. The album name is taken from the Graham Masterson novel The Wells of Hell, and the title track is primarily based on that book.

About as subtle as two elephants humping, Corruptor Infestor kicks things off at breakneck speed, and the accelerator is not lifted until On Wyverns Wings of Oblivion has come to a final stop. In between, you get some of the gnarliest, blackest and fiercest death thrash that has been released this year. There’s an underlying groove that is reminiscent of latter-day Carcass, with the throaty rasp of Steve Harris at times reminiscent of Jeff Walker. That’s no bad thing in my book.

The lyrics are as gruesome as the music is black. Enter The Witch House for example, echoes with the chilling refrain: ‘Light up the oven, a feast for the coven, their parents search high and low The first ones to cry are the first ones to die, the rest are locked up in the basement below The ones who survive are then roasted alive, until the meat falls off the bone The gristle and fat will be fed to the rats, and the organs are fed to the crows’.

The subject matter may leave the bones chilled but the music is brutal but excellently executed. The dual guitars of Steve Redmond and Bobby Phippins are solidly supported by the blistering drumming of Jeremy Bradley and bassist Justin Shaw. An aural assault that shows no mercy, this album is another addition to the continuing list of blackened thrash outfits who are rising from the graves once more. 

THE DAY OF THE BEAST – INDISPUTABLY CARNIVOROUS is out Friday the 18th via Prosthetic Records and the bands BandCamp