BASTARD PRIEST - Ghouls of the Endless Night

Even though this record was released in early September last year, unfortunately I only got to hear it now. Or fortunately, better late than never. Do you like old school Swedish death metal á la Entombed/Dismember? Do you like the Scandinavian d beat of the 80s Anti Cimex? Well, then Bastard Priest are just what you need, but if you are a bit more demanding for diversity, you may think they could have done better. But let’s move on. Old school to the bone, with devastating sound and an image that leaves no room for doubts regarding the band’s love for the brutal, macabre and dirty metal of the 80s and early 90s; Bastard Priest are one of the most pleasant surprises for an aficionado of  extreme at the end of 2011 (or early 2012 in my case).

I was asking earlier whether you liked Swedish death metal in the vein of Entombed, well, if Left Hand Path (1990) was at its time a record that raised the hair on your back, hands and all over, and releases such as Clandestine (1991) and Wolverine Blues (1993) still make you say: "This is what you need, man!" / "How cool was metal back then..." and then sigh, I tell you, you need not despair. The Swedish duo under the infamous name of Bastard Priest gave us, with Ghouls of the Endless Night, one of the best doses of underground extreme metal of 2011, dirty and hot, coming from the fires down below to your speaker, ready to obliterate all life forms.

The first song is Pestilent Force, starting with a hellish thrash metal/d beat part, a combination of Exodus with Anti Cimex, and then continues with a guitar lead that reminded me of Slayer in the 80s, and then lets the breathtakingly cavernous voice enter the scene.

The second one is Ghouls of the Endless Night, the title track. From the very first seconds you get the feeling that you’re listening to Entombed’s Wolverine Blues, or that Lars Goran Petrov is ready to assault the microphone, and everything is perfectly justified. With the tempo alternating between slower and faster parts, Ghouls of the Endless Night is the song that best describes the sound inferno included on this material.

The third song, Enter Eternal Nightmare, presents a side of the band oscillating between old school death metal á la Autopsy and scandalous hardcore punk. Doomy and ready to rumble, this song will make you believe that you’re not on the wrong record and it’s not a nice dream, it’s for real!

And here we are at the half. Song number four is called Poison and no, it’s not a cover version after Alice Cooper, or a tribute to the famous glam metal band of the 80s. In fact it is a tribute to the necro and grotesque sound of the Swedish scene of the late 80s and early 90s.

The fifth song, Sacrilegious Ground, awakes you with an alert Scandinavian d beat, jumpy and just right to get moving, if you’re not too nostalgic already.

Fucking Slaughter, song number 6 on the record, is just as the title describes it. A slaughter in sound and a revolt against everything that’s polished and nicely packaged.

And here we are at song number 7. Titled Last Scream, this is the second-to-last song on the record. It is against a nod to Entombed / Dismember.

And now, for the final song on this record: Enormous Thunder of the End. Not quite a thunder, and not an ultra-brutal version of God of Thunder from Kiss, but it serves to complete the morbid picture painted by the band in their 40 minutes of sound release and grotesque.

At the risk of repeating myself, I will end by saying that if you like old school death metal, Scandinavian d beat and dirty and morbid thrash metal, Bastard Priest will be right up your alley. Unfortunately, the music becomes a bit linear from a point, a little more diversity or personal touch would have been welcome.

H. Nota: 7