Slay baby, slay!
I was sold when I saw the name of the band. Right from the start. I mean, what more do you want in metal? I was immediately seeing a big ass orc with a great axe in hand slaying puny peasants and I found comfort in that. Luckily we’re getting the equivalent of this with the Texans’ second full length. I discovered the Dallas natives with this album and I instantly preordered it when I saw the Mark Riddick inspired artwork. The art includes mandatory elements to be a metal band. Skeletons, demons, fire, axes, swords and the list goes on. It’s pure badassary and a good reflection of their music.
They’re riff worshipers who went on enough adventures to know what to bring in a fully packed dungeon. Their main strength is their ability to be totally homogeneous in their metallic approach while showcasing a wide plethora of influences. Their main core of thrashy death metal is then appropriately seasoned with black metal, heavy metal, crossover and even doom. It’s pretty damn efficient and recalls the seminal works of Deceased with their over the top blend of true metal. The guitars are big, loud and insanely good. The extended solos of main man Wyatt (remember we’re in Texas y’all) are over the top and they’re Slayer at 150% strength with twice the skills. His vocals are cavernous in an old school way and they’re mostly rooted in death metal aesthetics.
They start the adventure with two fast numbers before serving us longer songs, they know a thing or two about pacing and track lists. Whether they’re playing faster or slower, they’re always super intense. “Tombspawn” takes about three minutes to “start”, it has this slow intro that just lures you in the graveyard and then the putrid vocals pushes you in the freshly dug grave. The solo near the end just finishes the job. Superb occult metal right there.
They end the forty minutes record with a twelve minutes epic that just pushes you to the brink of madness, this number has death/doom vibes mixed with fast riffs and mournful but still quite potent moment. The halfway mark break almost sounds like Hooded Menace (that’s a good thing if you were wondering) before going back to thrash goodness. They’re talented fellas as they’re able to avoid being too one note, a complaint I often have with thrash metal. There’s a lot to unpack here but it’s tightly written, tightly played and much more intricate than it appears. Essential modern kitchen sink thrash, fellas.
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