TORCHBEARER - Yersinia Pestis
March 10, 2004, 20 years ago
(Metal Blade)
Think back to the contact high one contracted when Witchery was let loose upon the world. Or perhaps when The Crown re-thunk their groove and got fun. Well, Yersinia Pestis (Latin for Abyssinian exterminator) is a finely diced and spliced razor-walk that divebombs into fuzzy focus with those same potential pot-smoked memories. Featuring members from Unmoored, Chaosdaemon, Setherial, Satariel and Incapacity (and with both better name and purpose than all those), Torchbearer carve up an unswervingly quick, flashy, brutish, headbanging amalgam of death, black and thrash, or to put a fine point on it, thrash piledriven underground with the endearing single-mindedness of modern death metalized black metal, Zyklon on a 12-pack, ten of the most blistering Darkane or Haunted songs jumbled end to end with nasty guest vocals from north of the treeline.
