THE WRETCHED END is a three piece from Notodden, Norway consisting of the legendary Samoth (EMPEROR, ZYKLON, GORGOROTH to name a few) on guitars and the equally prolific Nils FJellstrom (DARK FUNERAL) on drums and Cosmo (ZYKLON) on vocals. The band plays mainly a mixture of Black Metal and Thrash Metal with some elements of Death Metal and Groove Metal. These guys do complete justice to both the genres, you’ll find the raw distortion, tremolos and the overall gloomy atmosphere of Black Metal mixed perfectly with the heavier ,downtuned chugging riffs and harmonized solos associated with the genre which we all know and love called Thrash Metal. This makes this album different from a lot of other bands these days but at the same time its not something thats very experimental and would seem very alien to the listeners unlike Samoth’s previous band ZYKLON. This is something that Black Metal fans and Thrash Metal fans would immediately recognise and acknowledge, yet it seems so unlike anything else because of the clever song writing. However there are some moments where the band does tend to experiment such as the track OF MEN AND WOLVES which mixes some elements of Modern/Groove Metal with their Traditional Metal and Black Metal or the last track ZOO HUMAN SYNDROME which has a tremolo played with reverb over a fast chugging riff accompanied by speeding by double bass, this is something that I have never ever heard before in either of these genres. All of this is producing in complete clarity with each note being audible to the listener, now that might not appeal to fans of Traditional Black Metal fans but I believe that it suits this album perfect.
So in the end the OMINOUS turns out be a great album that would definitely appeal to all the Thrash Metal fans, as far as Black Metal is concerned I am not sure if it would appeal to all “kvlts” but I am sure it would appeal to the more open minded Black Metal fan, however I don’t think that this is their best, for that is yet to come.
Recommended if you like: SKELETONWITCH, MAYHEM, BURZUM, IMMORTAL, EMPEROR, GORGOROTH, TESTAMENT, PANTERA, SLAYER, EXODUS.
