Label: Osmose Productions
Date: October 25th, 2024
To be completely honest, I didn’t plan at all to write this review, and I came across this stuff by accident. Well, I think I should use the expression “so-called accident” in the previous sentence. The reason is I somehow never believed in accidents. I mean, I’m sure I found this stuff online to give you one more evidence there’re a lot of interesting ensembles playing all possible sub-genres of our beloved music in Belgium. So, now you know Butcher doesn’t play death or even black metal. But since there’s still few possibilities you can make a choice between to guess what Belgians play, then I hope you didn’t stop to read my scribble right now! And you’ll don’t do it too quickly, because before I tell you this, I plan to give you some biographical facts. That’s not to make this review even longer, but to make the band a little bit less anonymous for you. The Belgian scene is still unknown outside the country, so this is quite a good idea, I guess. Anyways, Bütcher was born in 2002 in the second most populous city of Belgium (and Flandres itself, even if admiratively Brussels doesn’t lay in this region) – Antwerp. First five years of their existence resulted in only two demos. Then the ensemble split-up and came back to life in 2014.
“On Fowl of Tyrant Wings” is their third full-length. You can find eight tracks here and before I begin describing them (but if you need some analysis of every song’s structure – try to find some other review of this stuff!), I tell you what. This album is one more proof supporting the thesis Belgian scene is in huge grade underrated! I’m still wondering why this is like that and probably will do it, unfortunately, eternally. I know Belgium’s north and north-east as well as eastern, in the most, neighbor-lands have great and prominent scenes, but is that an explanation enough? In my opinion it absolutely isn’t! Well, maybe this is like that with me also because I got to know Evil Sinner much before (in this period it felt like an age) any Dutch ensemble. Anyways, let’s get back to the merits of the case: music. This is dedicated to as young as me asses, first of all. Of course, there’s a lot of fans of such playing between younger, even much younger metalheads. However, the fact remains that people my age will feel like fish in the water while listening to “On Fowl…”. I mean, this is exactly what my generation grew up on – pure old-school speed metal.
Well, on the portal I use very often I find describing things like black/speed. But let’s be honest, I can’t hear and to my mind there’s no sign of this first sub-genre of metal here. I recognize some quite far influences of power metal instead. But they’re about some vocalizations, maybe about some guitar tricks only. It takes place rarely, even very rarely, and is short, quite hard to notice fragments. Otherwise, we have to do with sharp razors, aggressive and creating characteristic melody line riffs, rhythm drumming and screamy a little harsh singing. At the same time there’s a lot of something we could call solos and other guitar tricks, but even they cut and drill into the head of the listener, which I just love. So, as you see everything’s like it should be. This is so in the case of most stuff. Last two, maybe even three tracks are a little more eclectic. It of course doesn’t mean anything wrong! It only means you can more clearly hear in them elements or better to say touches of other genres of what we love the most. Both vocal and guitar play sometimes hook on death metal. But in the most, and it takes even all stuff, but first these last let’s say three songs, you can clearly hear what a very well-known heavy/power metal ensemble born in 1980 in Auburn, New York inspires our Belgian friends.
So, what more can I write? I think about anything, because I wrote at the beginning of the review what I probably should do now. You know, after reading the beginning of the second paragraph, that’s as clean as a day what I think about this album and if I recommend it. Oh… But I forgot to tell you something very important. “On Fowl of Tyrant Wings” is released by Osmose Production and is a very fresh piece of music – premiere took place October 25th. You can, what’s, it seems, a new tradition several labels have, make a choice between CD, LP, tape and digital copy.
