Cutting through numerous line-up changes, and yet continuing to produce albums every two years, is an achievement in itself. Left with Lyse Hansen, the band’s only remaining founder, THE GREAT BLUDGEONING is the seventh full-length release of HATESPHERE. Clocking just over 35 minutes in length, the album is in-your-face, sometimes groovy and all aggressive! The new vocalist Hansen has perfect vocals for the job. His growls are not death-like, yet it contains the aggressiveness of thrash. The opening track , KILLER, opens up with full force and fits the so-called “genre profile” perfectly. The aggressive riffs, the variety of patterns in drumming, Hansen’s vocals, all add up to one killer opening track. The late-bloomer VENOM introduces with an acoustic plucking, reminding of METALLICA’s BATTERY, before drowning in the thrash/death brutality again. The song has lots of variations and remains quite catchy due to the efforts of guitarists Hansen & Nyholm’s riffing prowess. The album pushes the brakes somewhere near the 20 min mark with THE WAIL OF MY THRENODE with a slow distorted instrumental, only to pick up the velocity with RESURRECT WITH A VENGEANCE. The album tries to suppress monotony by introducing melodious yet not-so-speedy guitar solos in the later songs. The album closes with a relatively smaller track DEVIL IN YOUR HOME with the same aggressiveness as the intro track.
Its quite interesting to see how Modern Thrash Death Metal bands like HATEFORM & HATESPHERE take differently to the same genre. While HATEFORM features brutally aggressive riffs and inhumanly fast solos (man, those were fast!), HATESPHERE delivers some short, in-your-face heavy riffs with a controlled pace all over the album. The production quality is near perfect, with the feel of Old School Thrash Metal and Death Metal all through.
Bottom Line
THE GREAT BLUDGEONING doesn’t break any barriers, yet recommended and I am sure the best is yet to come from HATESPHERE.
