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It’s both a blessing and a curse to hear an album that makes you want to say "Fuck yeah!" and leave it at that. Never Reborn impressed me with their debut EP a while back so, of course, I jumped at the chance to cover their first full-length, Ashes of Our Past. This is exactly the step forward I was wanting from them, with songwriting that’s more varied and musicianship that’s sharper while still sacrificing virgins to the altars of Celtic Frost and Kreator with vile, nasty vocals, thudding, skull-pounding bass work, and massive, pummeling riffs that drag like a marching Neanderthal’s club and strike with the same damn force. The only moments of rest you’ll get are the brief moody intro and the surprisingly lovely instrumental "False Prophecies," because every other track hits like a cinder block to the back of the fucking skull. "Fallen One" and "Children of Fire" particularly stand out as first-rate works of savage beauty, but they’re closely followed by the title track, "Haunted Eternally," fucking "Death March Armageddon," goddamn it, I could just read you the track list at this point. Never Reborn remember that the first part of metal is heavy, and I haven’t heard a band understand that better since the glory days of Usurper and Lair of the Minotaur, which is not praise I throw around lightly. They’re still fairly unknown, and that’s a crime against the underground itself, so go get this album and help them rise to the top like they deserve.