ALBUM REVIEW: Through The Gate Eternal – Demiser

By its very nature, blackened thrash shouldn’t be fun. Guttural vocals, inhuman drumming and rapid-fire guitar riffs are not inherently enjoyable, but even so, Through The Gate Eternal is a blast. The debut full-length from South Carolinians DEMISER is a riotous 35 minutes of high-speed metal. It’s not too far removed from being stretched to a vomit-inducing fairground ride that’s only held together with duct tape and momentum, but you can’t help having a good time. It’s a headbanging, beer guzzling party, albeit one with a song called Raw Fucking Vomit on the track-list.

This is an album that recalls the grimy intensity of POSSESSED, VENOM and early SODOM. It’s dyed in the wool ultra-metal awash with Satanic imagery. Back in the 1980s this would have scared the living daylights out of conservative parents, but nowadays it’s more likely to attract grinning fans than mainstream controversy.

The opening title track wastes hardly any energy before diving headfirst into buzzsaw fretwork and lyrics about having your soul eaten by Satan. It’s ideal for spending a night in a graveyard, talking about summoning a demon but opting to sniff glue and chug beers instead. It’s not a nice song, but it has a wild-eyed urgency and is hard not to like. Warfuck Demon Lust meanwhile (yes, that’s the title), is a white-knuckle finale that features surprisingly impressive guitar work and Offering eases off the throttle just enough for them to say they’ve worked a bit of variation in. It also features a distinctly Tom Araya-esque scream that old-school fans will love.

Despite the anti-commercial nature of their chosen genre though, DEMISER still have a chance of being a long-term success. For one thing, they aren’t as one-dimensional as some of their peers. Through The Gate Eternal’s focus is on wrecking necks as quickly as possible, but they’ve snuck a couple of hooks into the mix. Hook And Torment for example is remarkably catchy, while Demiser The Demiser has a nice call-and-response chorus that’s begging for crowd participation. They manage this without sacrificing one iota of malevolence as well.

It’s all so ridiculous that any talk of blood and devil-worship is devoid of danger, but that’s sort of the point. DEMISER have almost certainly got their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks and must have had a whale of a time recording this. They’re too heavy to work as a gateway band for thrash newcomers, but anyone that’s enjoyed the MUNICIPAL WASTE back-catalogue and fancies giving something heavier a go will want to dive right in.

Rating: 7/10

Through The Gate Eternal is set for release on March 12th via Boris Records.

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