Band: HAMMERGOAT / UNHOLY ARCHANGEL
Country: Brazil / Greece
Title: Unholy Wrath of Goat
Label: Hammer of Damnation
Year: 2019
Style: Black Death Metal

Review:
Opening this split are a trio from Brazil made of experienced musicians, members of notable bands like Evil or Dethroned Christ, so from the start part of their success is made on behalf of their previous works. This is not a new project though, it started to be active on discographic level in 2009 and have a full-length out one year later, in 2010. The music is simple, mid-tempo, repetitive Black Death Metal, mostly instrumental, with short vocal inserts here and there, and probably that's what makes it a bit blunt, too. Unfortunately there's nothing entertaining or interesting here, it feels like you're attending a rehearsal of theirs, where they keep repeating the same stuff in wait of something more to add to the tracks: a bunch of friends having fun at the rehearsals, but only trying to come up with definitive tracks, not also succeeding. I was expecting something more from musicians with such high experience...
Unholy Archangel's return is a real surprise, their latest offering was from 2015, a split with Peruvian Black Angel, and their latest (and only) studio album, Obsessed by War, is dated 2010, so the legendary Greek gods of Bestial Metal are not the most productive fellows around. If you know the band, you know their music as well, there's little to no variation along the years, the band plays mostly fast paced Black Death with fuzzy guitars, old-school chaotic solos, frantic rhythm section, tormented vocals, and although they have short inserts of slow paced rhythms, their music is absolutely uncompromising, devastating and totally hateful, and the combination with Greek lyrics is probably their advantage and actually trademark as it sets them apart from similar bands. 
A split for the initiated only, definitely not for the masses. Fave track: the fourth, I don't even know how it's named as it is written in Greek alphabet.
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 5/10   8/10

Contact:
facebook.com/Unholy-Archangel-178141908890962
hodrecs.com

 

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