Ελληνικά
Genre: Black/Speed metal
Country: Scotland
Label: Barbarian Wrath
Year: 2017
Can you imagine what would happen if Lemmy and uncle Tom Angelripper had a child? I’ll tell you what. It actually happened, and his name is James McBrain. This scottish dude, even if he’s only 22 years old, has achieved great things, one of which is the amazing black speed band Hellripper, an one man project and after 3 years of one EP and 2-3 split releases, comes the first full length album entitled “Coagulating Darkness”.
This great album contains 8 tracks and comes in like a wrecking ball with “Bastards Of Hades”. Raw, violent, aggressive and flawless, Midnight-like, while continues with “Anneliese”, as a tribute to the late Anneliese Michel, the infamous case of the girl possessed by 6 demons and died after countless exorcism performances on her. With “Demdike (In League With The Devil)”, James makes clear that wants to bring back the First Wave Of Black Metal, Celtic Frost-type riffs and Venom-like speed levels while with “From Hell”, Metallica’s Kill Em All comes in mind with the right fix of dirt in the vocals, reminding us of Toxic Holocaust and “Evil Never Dies”. While the pattern goes on, the album ends on the 26th minute with the same titled outro track “Coagulating Darkness”.
Little bit of Punk, little bit of Thrash, little bit of Celtic Frost and little bit of Bathory, along with Midnight, Speedwolf and Cruelforce, Hellripper to me is one hell of a great band for our generation. It doesn’t matter if you are in your 50s and have given up on this music, this will get you out of bed, no matter what. The only negative to me is probabaly the small length of this (or maybe the drum machine), but it doesn’t matter, it is a heir to the imperfect oldschool speed/black metal genre.
4,5/6
