Legion of the Damned
Feel the Blade
Season of Mist
Put down the knife, son...
A few things Dutch thrashers Legion of the Damned would like for us to know about their new album:
1. It’s not a new album.
2. It’s an old album, originally released in 2003 when the band was known as Occult.
3. It used to be called Elegy for the Weak.
4. It’s now called Feel the Blade.
5. They’ve added two new songs and a Pestilence cover.
6. The tracklisting has been completely changed.
7. One original song (“Until the Battle”) has been left off. We have no idea why, because that song rules.
8. This is officially the most unnecessarily complicated album reissue EVER.
Once you climb over that towering, not to mention ridiculous, hurdle, you’re left with a searing slice of retro-thrash that makes last year’s Sons of the Jackal sound dull by comparison and renders much of the younger thrash revivalists irrelevant in one fell swoop. Coupling the taut, Teutonic aggression of Kreator with the towering riffs of early Slayer, the foursome’s pace is relentless, vocalist Maurice Swinkels emitting a sneer that would make Mille Petrozza proud.
Faithfully rehashing thrash’s 25-year-old formula, much of the album’s appeal lies in the simplicity of its approach. Songs range from such done-to-death themes as warfare (“Nuclear Torment”), violence (“Slaughtering the Pigs”) and cartoonish depictions of horror (“Reapers Call”), but the arrangements are so thrillingly precise, Richard Ebisch’s staccato riffs so assured, that in the end, whatever the hell you want to call this album, it ends up being played several times over. —Adrien Begrand
