Review of Deströyer 666 EP "Call of the Wild"
— 5/10
Black thrash is one of those genres that feels like the party sub-genre of black metal, the kind of music you can put on in the background that is up-tempo enough to feel energetic without having the punishing energy or bleakness of Behemoth or Mayhem and close enough to traditional sounding so as not to offend those who are into metal as a whole but not in the thrall of black metal. And for me, therein lies the problem, there needs to be something special about the album to make me see the value in choosing a black/thrash album over a classic thrash album or a more intense black metal album. There are a few bands that manage to convince me of this, Aura Noir and Desaster being the pinnacle of black/thrash in my opinion; Desaster consistently produce interesting, intense and phenomenal music and in my eyes are the gold standard of black/thrash that any band taking up this style should try to beat or at the very least match in quality.
Unfortunately, Deströyer 666 have never really been able to convince me that their brand of black/thrash is good enough that I should forget Desaster, or even my old Slayer albums. "Call of the Wild" doesn't even feel like it has that much of a black influence, in fact, this EP sounds more like the forgotten tracks from a Venom album or maybe some of Nifelheim's poorer efforts. The songs are standard cut and paste thrash pieces, that had they been around during the heyday of thrash in the 80's wouldn't have been good enough to gather widespread support, I believe that because of black/thrash moniker Deströyer 666 will find more fans than had they been a straight up thrash act.
In fact, I've found it hard to even write a review for this EP because it's so forgettable, it's not bad, it just lacks any feature that is noteworthy. It's thrash, it has thrash beats, it has thrash riffs, it has vocals slightly harsher than found on a traditional thrash record, it has the type of solos that you find on thrash records, and that's about it. There is nothing exceptional or gripping about "Call of the Wild"; perhaps for those that are serious adepts of thrash and black/thrash, the kind of fan that is happy to keep on hearing the same approach since Metallica had long hair, Hanneman hadn't been bitten by a spider and Mustaine was still sulking about not being in Metallica, there is a reason that thrash became less prevalent in the 90's — there weren't a lot of places left to go.
Reviewed by Dan