By the Gates of Flesh is a five song EP by Thrash act Excruciator, and is the second entry into Heavy Artillery's latest Wax Maniax demo series. This release is strictly limited to two hundred vinyl pressings, as well as five hundred compact disc pressings. By the Gates of Flesh also marks the band's first official release, not including their 2009 demo recording, which is also the year that this act had formed. Basically, it's been roughly a year, and judging by this demo, the group has a pretty good grip on what they want to play, and, for the most part, it's just solid, straight forward Thrash with the sinister atmosphere of a Sodom or Kreator recording.
As mentioned, the general atmosphere of By the Gates of Flesh comes off sinsiter, or evil if you will. This is all thanks to the harsher vocal performance on the recording that brings a somewhat commanding, yet harsh-sounding approach, as well as the well paced music that traditionally goes between a mid-tempo to a faster tempo that simply doesn't let up, but definitely does not find the band overdoing themselves at any time for the sake of changing up the music, or time restraints, utilizing some rather complex guitars and plemty of double bass kicks and fills to work together, giving it a nice flow for each song as well. All of this is enhanced by the somewhat raw production quality of the recording, which is pretty clear, but sounds more like an early Thrash album remastered or recorded live recently via the soundboard of the performance. Either way, you'll feel as if you're being transported back to the early eighties when the style was at it's strongest.
Of the five songs on here, there isn't necessarily any that hold this EP back. Each track on here is a solid effort that hits hard at the listener's eardrums. The only track that seems to cause issues is "The Edenwitch of Torment", and that's only due to the over extended introductory chords that present a slightly Egyptian-sounding atmosphere to the track. In addition, the song is also the more jaw dropping track in the Thrash style, going at a slower pace then some of the other material on this EP, as well as having the music come off more as generic compositions then anything else. Of course, the song itself is still enjoyable, and features a very strong and energetic vocal performance, one of which some of the other tracks on this recording also feature, but not quite up to the caliber that exists here.
And that remains the only problem of this EP. Much of this release consists of music that many Thrash fans have already heard for years, offering nothing all that new to the mix except being well done. However, By the Gates of Flesh features three of the four songs off their 2009 Demo, which are the first three, and the last two tracks on here are new songs entirely. Of course, these two new songs are really where the band shines through. The title track, "By the Gates of Flesh", is an intense, fast-paced Thrash track that features some guitar musical skills and an overall energetic performance from the band, as is also the shortest song on the track, not having to compete with an extended track length that eventually starts to sound drawn out like "The Edenwitch of Torment" does at times. Of course, "Malevolence Impure" doesn't really reach the same speed as the aforementioned title track does, but it does seem to try, and at the same time really focuses on creating an evil atmosphere that, if the Thrash vocals were replaced with gutterals, could be argued as a crossover style with early Death Metal, as well as retaining a similar bite to the music.
While the first three tracks on By the Gates of Flesh sound good, they aren't anything all that remarkable, though nicely represent the best qualities of early Thrash Metal. It would have been nice to see the fourth song from their demo, "Fatal Fornication", come to life on this EP, but not for the sake of the last two songs of this EP, which really are the deal makers here. "Malevolence Impure" and "By the Gates of Flesh" nicely show how the band has begun to mature and fine tune their sound, presenting a very energetic performance on both tracks that greatly dwarfs the first three. If these two are any indication of the future recordings by Excruciator, then this band will definitely be a band to keep an eye on.
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