Desaster - Angelwhore

*=Staff's pick	The Arrival (intro) The Blessed Pestilence Angelwhore* Conqueror's Supremacy Ghouls To Strike Nihilistic Overture* Havoc Downfall Be Thy Blade* Revelation Genocide Mourning Path (outro)

Genre	Death/Thrash Metal	Sataniac	Vocals
Tracks	10	Infernal	Guitar
Runningtime	55 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Metal Blade	Odin	Bass
Release	22 August 2005	Tormentor	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

The album Angelwhore by long running german act Desaster is a very good example on how a bad productions can, if not ruin completely, so at least sink an otherwise good album to low grades.

Desaster’s history is according to their website going back to the year 1988 when "two young metal- possessed maniacs wanted to follow the path of bands like Venom, Hellhammer or Destruction (whose song „Total Desaster“ gave the band its name) – to play some fucking Black Metal without compromises". Early Desaster did some (never released) rehearsal tapes and a still remembered live gig in ’89 which marked the official beginning of the band. Since 1993 they have released 14 efforts, around half of them them 7", 10" and split cd's.

They play a nice kind of retro thrash with obvious references to the very early death/thrash scene. The riffs are overall very good in their simple and back-to-basics approach, and they have a nice retro feeling over them, both when it comes to structure, the flow of them and the actual sound. Unfortunatly the vocals and the drums destroy it all. The drums sound sloppy, thin and dry and at times even untight and the vocals sound strained and are distorted in a weird way, almost like they are buried under a pile of wet blankets. They are of the kind that you might have thought were pretty cool in the dawning years of death metal, but to be honest it kind of stinks.

The song material overall holds a fairly high standard with Nihilistic Overture and Downfall Be Thy Blade as highlights, but there are also some fallback moments where the song does not work as a whole but those are not many. Desaster manage to vary the material surprisingly much within the very limited and narrow genre they dwell in. It can't be denied that they live almost solely on their riffs, though.

Keep up the riffing just like you are doing, guys, and arrange for a decent production next time. Then we're talking.

See also review of: The Oath Of An Iron Ritual

Production	Vocals	Compositions
5	4	7,5

Summary
5 chalices of 10 - Tommy