(Today Wise Blood Records is releasing a kick-ass four-way split whose title says a lot, and Todd Manning says a lot more about it in this review.)
For those paying attention, record label Wise Blood Records has been spitting out pure fire with their releases since their inception less than two years ago. The latest release from the label is called Faster Than the Fucking Devil. It gathers together four blackened thrash acts from around the world, each spitting their own brand of blasphemous madness over the album’s thirty-seven-minute runtime.
Hailing from Northwest Indiana, Wraith kicks things off properly. Their sound draws on the early thrash classics like Exodus’s Bonded by Blood, Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends, and Metallica’s Kill ‘em All, but interjects a good dose of Motörhead as well. With tracks like “Demons of Doubt” and “(Call Me) The Destroyer” we get served the hooks of old-school metal with the rawness of black metal. They close their three songs with “Seven Serpents” which sports an awesome Slayer-inspired bridge.
Wraith
Kentucky’s Black Knife are up next, proving to be utterly feral in their delivery. They swap out Bay Area influences for the classics of German thrash a la Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction and sprinkle in the satanic rock majesty of Midnight and Venom. As amazing as these three songs are, I can’t imagine how they would sound in a live setting. “Satanic Commander” needs to close out the set and would surely inspire the crowd to go out and engage in all manner of after-midnight mayhem.
Black Knife
Returning to Indiana, Graveripper also leans more towards Teutonic thrash. They seem the most technically proficient of the four bands but never lose sight of the savagery. “Mind Filled with Dread” finds the happy medium between Coroner and early Destruction while “Night Frozen Black” conjures a more black metal atmosphere. “Tomb of the Oppressor” closes their set with a riff labyrinth that includes both classic metal sections and blasting, all the while keeping the blackened crypt stench intact.
Graveripper
Russia’s Unholy Night closes out the record with the most old-school material of the four. “Louder, Angrier” sounds like a lost track from Kill ‘em All, albeit with Immortal’s Abbath on vocals. Their other track, “Ancient Rites”, is even more succinct in its construction but stirs up more circle-pit-inducing madness.
Unholy Night
The four-way split record might not be the most common format, but in the case of Faster Than the Fucking Devil it definitely works. While these groups share a lot of common influences they each possess their own identity and leave the listener wanting more. Don’t sleep on any of these groups, or Wise Blood Records. This is the metal you need in your life.
https://wisebloodrecords.bandcamp.com/album/faster-than-the-fucking-devil
https://www.facebook.com/wraiththrash
https://www.facebook.com/blackknifeband
https://www.facebook.com/graveripperofficial
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063770212145