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Some bands create black metal filled with pomposity, epicness and grandness of scale. Warhorde is not one of those bands. Yep, this is absolutely vile, corpse-raping sewer filth of the highest order. Drum machine hammering away for the entire duration? Check. Crepuscular three-chord punk riffs lashed with NWOBHM styling? Check. Vocals that'll make your skin itch like it's covered with scabs? Er, yeah.. That's Warhorde's particular defining characteristic. The vocals are spat out in a horrid rasp, as if a voice was reaching from the dark past via your grandmother's transistor radio. It's all quite Lovecraftian really, if H.P. Lovecraft had lived long enough to become of the very underworld denizens he wrote about. They're quite decipherable too, so the blasphemies on offer are mostly easy to pick out without the aid of a lyric sheet.

In Warhorde's world, black metal after 1985 happened in an alternate dimension. This is purely the essence of Venom, early Bathory and Hellhammer, odiously vomited through modern equipment and stripped of all frivolities. It's all quite possible that this thing was recorded entirely live, with just the (barely audible) bass and maybe the vocals overdubbed. It's overall rawer than 95% of black metal I've heard, and that covers most of the Barbarian Wrath roster too. Suffice to say this band won't be breaking into the Century Blast mainstream any time soon, but those who appreciate their metal almost impenetrably filthy, blackened and decayed will find much to absorb and inspire here.