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Barbatos – Fury and Fear, Flesh and Bone

barbatos – fury and fear, flesh and bone

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Remind yourself, when was the last time you bought an album and noticed on the band pictures in the booklet (or the inlay in the case it was a vinyl record, which is most plausible) that the members were wearing shirts of bands like Bulldozer or Rigor Mortis? I guess that must’ve been at least fifteen years. The Polish label Agonia Records is slowly but surely gaining more and more respect in the old school metal scene, besides the newer sounding black metal bands like Armagedda (I admit that they are still nodding to the old school scene) for instance, they also release some of the finer ancient metal arts. Besides bands like Nunslaughter, Possessed and Sathanas for instance we just had Mordant and now the new Barbatos album has been spawned upon humanity…

According to the booklet of the promo CD I got I can conclude that the line-up has extended pretty impressively. Besides the usual Yasuyuki and Youhei we now find the two Americans Chuck Keller (real name Charles Keller, who can also be found in Ares Kingdom) and Joel Grind (from the rising old school thrash formation Toxic Holocaust). And for those who missed the previous releases so far, this is an old school metal project by the aforementioned Japanese guys from Abigail and Cut Throat (I’m not sure whether Chuck And Joel are permanent members or just session musicians) and they play in the vein of the ancient ancestors of the metal we know today, so take bands like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Venom, Destruction, Sodom, Sarcofago, Bathory – it is safe to say that it is the same old few that has been mentioned in this vein all the time for so many years. Lyrically it is all the same old song, I mean song titles like “Dick Is Fucking Big” and “I Love To Eat Pussy” and “Satanik Beer” of course sparkles the imagination. The punky riffs are thrown around like mad, take a song like “Blond Hair And Bitch” for instance that is just one hell of a simple punk song from the time that punk wasn’t turned into some wanker society by the likes as Epitaph Records who fucked up that scene, too bad. But it has also some proto-thrash songs like “Apocalyptic Nuclear Hell” which is more in the Sodom vein with more than just a nod to Destruction for instance. The thing that is actually the most remarkable is that this album actually consists of different recording sessions, the first five songs were recorded in May 2004 with Chuck Keller on vocals and the following five with Joel Grind on vocals. The next four songs are an unreleased demo from 2000 and therefore sound quite different than the previous ten, not to be forgotten poorer in sound quality. It is definitely a demo, let that be clear, I have hundreds of demo tapes that sound quite alike, but I still can’t help that I love this kind of stuff. Some of the sleazy punk songs (“666 Deadly Omens”) remind me of GG-Allin for instance and that is a good thing! As an extra bonus there is cover track called “Outbreak Of Evil”, needless to say who was the originator I hope…

This album is definitely for the depraved, for those who can’t get enough of what once was. The long gone days when metal was still a pure thing. I won’t spend another few words on a essay that I’ve written at least ten times before, so if you care for it browse through out website and find the true gems metal has still to offer. For metal is still not dead, not even metal from twenty years ago…

Barbatos

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