Band: BITCHHAMMER
Country: Germany
Title: Offenders of the Faith
Label: Iron Shield Records
Year: 2019
Style: Thrash Black Metal

Review:
Well, it was about time for Bitchhammer to stop testing the waters with demos, EPs and split releases and actually come up with their debut full-length album, and here it is, Offenders of the Faith, the band's first opus, sees the light of the day 11 years after the band was spawned, so we're dealing here with a band that seems to take its time in preparing their next step. This distance between the band's foundation and their official discographic debut seems to have tightened their performance and indeed the 9 tracks featured here sound pretty curdled, well balanced between fast and slower passages yet maintaining that visceral aggression and blasphemous atmosphere an old-school (obviously with such a band name) mix between Thrash and Black Metal is supposed to bring to the table. Of course, being a trio Bitchhammer rely on what they can achieve utilizing their skills and capacities as composers to the max and parading on such a crowded highway that is Thrash Black Metal gives you few chances (if none at all) to bringing your own thing to the game, coming up with something original, so I guess Bitchhammer don't even try on that angle but rather try to offer as much headbanging material as possible to their listeners and at the same time enjoying what they do. The good thing about that is that the band has the necessary skills as musicians to take riffs we've heard before and fuse them together in what comes out as a very entertaining, powerful, fierce material that sounds like it would absolutely destroy the audience live, and there's where the band force might be impressive; or at least that's the impression this debut album gives me.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 7.5/10

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