Gallower
“Vengeance & Wrath”
Dying Victims Prod. 2025
I've only just had a chance to write you a few words
about Pandemic's second album, and here new Gallower material has already
emerged from around the corner. What these two bands have in common is well
known. Both lineups feature Nocturnitter, who is one of my favorite retro-style
guitarists of the younger generation. The guy has the skills and the head for writing
riffs, unquestionably. Gallower is well known to all geeks of old-style metal.
Their debut “Behold the Realm of Darkness” and subsequent EP “Eastern
Witchcraft” are the essence of 1980s thrash metal. And undoubtedly the
forefront of the genre in our domestic backyard in recent years. So is the band
still sailing in the right direction, or is it drifting into the shallows?
Fuck, free jokes! I'm willing to venture that this is the best, and certainly
the most varied material the band has ever recorded. Of course, the band's
style hasn't changed a bit. Only the form of the message has changed, albeit
slightly. The gentlemen no longer ride straight ahead relentlessly, or at least
not all the time. Because there is a lot of riffing at full speed here anyway.
At moments, however, they press the brake pedal, as if they wanted to take a
sharp turn before accelerating their machine to full speed again. I don't know
if this was a deliberate procedure, and Gallower decided to prove that music
inspired by the classics is not just highway speeding, or it came out by chance,
but there are more tempo changes here than on the band's previous releases.
And, believe me, these slower parts are not softer at all. Perhaps, in fact,
there's more of a heavy-metal shtick in them, but just as many razor-sharp
harmonies. The band's traditional selling point is its sound. Gallower's
recordings from the beginning resemble in this respect the albums of the bands
our boys are inspired by. I won't discover America, either, by saying that Tzar
does a great job as a singer. The guy has an awesome tone of voice, knows when
to be rougher and when to “squeak” or sing in the choruses. And then there's
that fantastic, old-school drumming. At times it's like being cut out from
early Kreator or Sodom albums. I'll be honest and say that I wanted to point
out a few tracks from this album at first, but after a few listens I decided it
was pointless, because each of them has its own face, and none of them goes
below the high level that the album represents as a whole. So to keep it short,
to anyone with a taste for retro music at the highest level, I can recommend
“Vengeance & Wrath” along with a written guarantee of quality. Signed with
both of my hands.
- jesusatan
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