When the apocalypse inevitably hits, the main entities likely to adapt are cockroaches, Hostess cake products - whose lack of natural ingredients, shelf-life measured in aeons and sponge-like nature will surely soak up radiation like a tree processes oxygen - and thrash bands. If you’re fighting E-Number-crazed insects for the only viable food left amongst the ashes, you’re going to need lightning-fast reactions, a thoroughly ruthless attitude, all the bulletbelts you can possibly muster and to generally be okay with returning to some primitive state of spittle-flecked, no-fucks-given lunacy.
Norwegian duo Deathhammer have been preparing for such a scenario for the past 13 years, stripping their sound down to its most efficient, six-foot-fucking-cockroach-slaying core, sounding constantly primed to leap into action in a millisecond and mercilessly free of anything that might be surplus to requirements: evolution, melody, the ability to reflect and so on.
All of which means that if Deathhammer’s forthcoming fourth album Chained To Hell - revving up and smashing through the gates of Hells Headbangers Records on October 5 – doesn’t offer any surprises, it’s only because it goes one better. It exists in a constant present state of hyper-alert, speed metal mania whose rampant electrical current will have your arm raised into a claw long before your conscious brain has even clogged what’s going on.
For those who like their thrash atavistic, raw and of a pace that makes Mad Max look like an Ingmar Bergman movie, we’re streaming Chained To Hell in its full nutzoid glory. Hell - and huge, luminous Hostess Twinkies - awaits, so without further ado, jump on a boulder, rouse a mass of unkempt and bizarrely painted warriors into a frenzy, scamper across the wasteland and raise a desiccated possum to the memory of Carlos Ezquerra with Chained To Hell as your soundtrack!
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