Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Date: October 18th, 2024
I have no idea why this is like that, but I feel the most, if not even all, Swedish bands associated outside the country come from its central or southern part. And believe me, there’re very interesting ensembles also in the far north. There may not be too many of them, but this is because the region isn’t very densely populated – due to climate first, I think. Anyways, Feral is one of examples which support my thesis I wrote before. The guys decided to play together (now there still are only two original members in Feral) year 2003 under the name Valmer & Hook, bur four year later changed both name and music style. I mean, there’s no elements of Black Metal anymore in their creativity. The same as in case of Paganizer, it’s pure and painfully classic death metal. Well, similarities between these two acts don’t end there. I know I should write this somewhere on the end of my scribble, because it can happen some of you just leave me right now and do what your music taste says – contact the band to buy CD or will be like “well, it’s nothing for me, so I don’t read even a line more”. But to be honest I don’t give a shit about it! I mean, it’d be of course better for me if there’s someone who’ll read this review to the end, but if you don’t need to know how many tracks were able to listen to here, what label and when released this album and so on, then I can’t force you to stay with me, doesn’t it? And even if I had some superpower to do it, I’d never ever use it.
“To Usurp the Thrones” is the fourth full-length in the history of the ensemble, and we had to wait for six years. Well, the label, Transcending Obscurity Records, had to do it, too. But as I wrote before, it was worth waiting so long for this released October 18th album! The quality of both every entire song and album is really high. I tell you even more, in my opinion these eleven compositions confirm once again and finally that Feral doesn’t have to usurp anything. They may not yet sit on one of thrones of Swedish Death Metal, but they’re certainly near the throne room, in my opinion. But even if guys play very classically and in an old-school way, there are some differences between them and Paganizer as well. This creativity is also strongly based in Swedish school created in the second half of the eighties and first one of the nineties, but we’re also able to notice some recognizable influences of American and even English styles. At the same time David’s growling makes me strongly associated with the one L. G. Petrov has designed us to. Anyways, I once again don’t think to write something more about riffs or drumming. Reason is we all know what Death Metal is about and describing all these things seems to me to be total nonsense. Guitar tricks here are more drilling into the head and create even sicker melodies than those ones in case of ensemble I reviewed last time, I guess. But don’t worry! The most important thing here is, what in the genre is in the first place – brutality. Music is in the middle or middle-fast tempo at the most as well, but there happen to be a little slower moment, too. They do not take place too often and are quite short ones, but even in them guys don’t show even a shadow of pity to our ears. The exception is the longest song on the album, “Vile Malediction”, which as on death metal is quite slow. Well, this only means that in that track inhabitants of Skellefteå spread brutality and music apocalypse in a slightly different way.
To make it short, if you’re a fan of old-school Swedish death metal with some touches of another school, you shouldn’t wait any moment longer and don’t give a shit about spending some euros (or Swedish crowns if you live in Sweden – but to do it, you have to contact the band and not label) on “Usurp…” in the version you want. Stuff is available as a CD, cassette, vinyl and, what’s basically obvious these days, a digital album. It will surely not hurt if or after listening to the album, you decide to buy some merch, too. And with this optimistic accent I’ll end my writing! It’s a bit of a shame for me to do this, because it means putting this stuff down to a virtual shelf, but… I can only hope that my good luck in reviewing high-quality records, even if they’re “only” very solid works in their genres, will be sustained.
