As a big fan of Andi Macht’s lead guitar firestorms in German dirt doom kings Black Wasteland, I was all ears to find out he moonlights as bassist for ruthless punk/thrash/old school black metal bastards Hellburst. If Celtic Frost, Saviours, Hellshock, Venom, Discharge and BL’AST had a mutant six-headed baby baptized in an amniotic sac of burning holy water it would probably sound like this. Midnight, Boulder and Hellripper freaks should be along for this bullethole riddled, covered wagon ride from hell as well.

“Enforcement” indulges in a slug-stuffed thrash riff with catchy, simplistic punk chording and hooks up its chunking metal axe attacks to bludgeoning bass lines and single-kick drumming that reaches for double-bass bluntness that bubbles beneath staccato snare fills. Eventually the grease n’ oil spew forth a shellacking tempo change that haggardly high-speed smashes the shit out of everything. The dry lung vocal shouting rips out old school Cronos/Jamie Walters’ aggression by the gutful and rams it up your ass with a spiked gauntlet. It’s that distinctly awesome 80s sound that’s crossed the time-barriers pure and intact throughout certain circles in different areas within the worldwide underground metal realm. It saves the Fancy Feasting for Danzig’s cats and is all the better for it.

 The fist-fucking punk/metal riff of “Horrorclit” was originally taut in Lemmy School but eventually became a feature lesson in Venom and Bathory’s curriculums as well. Filthy, chaotic soloing fits the wildly thrashing cum riff spillage like a well-placed tissue and the whole affair conjures images of only sex, exploitation films, drugs, booze and bad habits. For a basement demo the drums have force, Macht’s bass licks got plenty of girth, the riffs have the scuzzy rumble I like to hear and the vocals trade variety for pissed off plunder. “Roadkill” has a shout-along chorus making excessive use of the song title with riffs trading complexity for infectious ear-drillers full of ascending/descending surgery with enough stops n’ starts and tempo shifts to constantly keep you guessing whether your liquor is staying down or coming up. At nearly 5 minutes in dick length “Hellburst” erects a monument of gnarled, sludgy riffing with grinding mid-tempos sure to please fans of Frost as well as fans of early Venom. Martial percussion law turns militant snare fills into minesweeping tom-tom runs with rotten wood thrash riffage crawling with enough larvae and pupae to really do up that gross old school style just right.

With a cassette re-record of this release in the works and a full-length on the distant horizon, Hellburst shows a lot of promise on Demo(n) #1 and plays this kind of metal exactly the way I want to hear it. There will be no awards for technicality given to these guys but they don’t need it. You don’t stick to this style for the gloss; you stick to it for the guts that are hopefully splattered all over your moshpit by show’s end. Sign me up for another round anytime!

[Visit the band's website]

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