Rapture – Paroxysm Of Hatred – Album Review

Put your horns in the air if you think that late 80’s & early 90’s death/thrash was the last bastion of extremity that still came laced with that all important head-banging groove.

Everyone? Good, we’ll continue.

Before technicality became the ‘be all and end all’ of extreme metal bands around the globe the likes of Death, Possessed, Dark Angel, Massacre, Sadus, Slayer, Protector, Rigor Mortis, Sepultura, Morbid Saint, Demolition Hammer, Solstice and Num Skull were delivering jaw-dropping technicality backed by an uncanny knack for being brutal, yet oddly accessible. It was a time when blasting away just for the sake of it wasn’t on the agenda and writing actual songs was still the name of the game!

It was a glorious era for metal and, understandably, some bands are reluctant to let it go. The problem is that you’ve got  to be pretty damn special to make your mark in 2018 by playing this sort of music, especially if you’re attempting to emulate the sounds of some of the finest metal bands to have ever walked this earth.

Fortunately, these Greeks seriously know their shit. Rapture are simply colossal, rewinding the clock back to the late 80’s with ridiculous ease and un-restrainable confidence as they clatter their way through 8 tracks of pure death/thrash malevolence. Looking to fracture your skull with each and every precision-tooled tempo change, the likes of “Thriving On Atrocity”, “Misanthropic Outburst” and the 7 minute title track are pure savagery, deftly balancing the brutality of death metal with the speed and aggression of thrash and delivering a time-capulse of an album that’s utterly irresistible.

Paroxysm Of Hatred is the late 80’s Death album you’ve never heard, it’s the bridge between Sepultura’s Schizophrenia and Beneath The Remains and it’s what would have happened had Sadus and Dark Angel teamed up in the early 90’s to form a wrecking-ball of a supergroup.

Too much praise?

Perhaps, but with Paroxysm Of Hatred we honestly thought we were listening to a ‘lost’ album from the glory days of thrash/death…..and there can be no greater compliment than that! 9/10

Paroxysm of Hatred is due out on January 22nd, 2018 via Memento Mori (Spain).