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Downfall is the debut album from Germany's Chaos Path, and it is a savage, bestial throwback to the early days of extreme metal, before terms like "black" and "death" were anything more than parts of band names and song titles. The music is thrashy but in a loose, chaotic way, nothing like the thrash of the mid to late '80s which was rapidly becoming both tighter and more melodic. This is more like Venom's first three albums or early Bathory, with that "louder and faster is better" approach. The vocals are tortured screams that are moderately intelligible (though in German, but you can make out the words even if you can't understand them) and possess powerful and, at the same time, creepy and unsettling qualities. These qualities come together nowhere better than on the closer, "Unter Woelfen", which has a chorus you can picture some lost race of ancient people chanting as they head into battle or on the way to a hunt. The rest of the songs are less distinctive, but all possess the same dark and sinister vibe. If you want something different from today's glut of black/death/thrash, yet still unrepentantly evil, give Downfall a spin.