Legion Of The Damned – Slaves Of The Shadow Realm – Album Review
Slaves to Death/Thrash!
Dutch deathly thrashers Legion Of The Damned are back with their seventh full-length, Slaves of the Shadow Realm, and this blackened beast of an album is as aggressive and unrefined as you’d hoped – and probably expected – it would be!
Five years after the well-received Ravenous Plague shredded our ears, these marauding maniacs have unveiled their “fifth band member” in the considerable shape of producer and teutonic thrash legend Andy Classen (ex-Holy Moses if you didn’t already know) and delivered an album that lives and dies by its onslaught of foot-stomping, head-nodding, top-class riffage.
With more than a little early black metal influence creeping in to their sound, it’s highlights such as the Destruction-esque (circa Infernal Overkill) widdly-riffing found on “Charnel Confession” which provide the biggest thrills. Elsewhere, Legion Of The Damned simply echo the thrash sounds of prime Kreator and the aforementioned Holy Moses but never once present themselves as mere imitators. Instead, Slaves Of The Shadow Realm presents itself as an old-school death/thrash album performed by a state-of-the-art modern act. Which is exactly what it is.
Each track hits like a sledgehammer, each riff needles its way into your brain and when LotD want you to bang your head…..you bang that fucking head, right!
It should be pretty clear by now that Legion Of The Damned don’t do subtlety, they just hammer you senseless with highly infectious death/thrash. Which is a wonderful thing. 8/10
Slaves of the Shadow Realm is out now via Napalm Records.
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