Magnus – Scarlet Slaughterer (Polish Thrash Speed Blood Metal)
I normally avoid reviewing reissues for the simple fact that they’re pretty common knowledge by the time they’re dumped again. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in consideration for reprinting, you know? But reissues of the same shit without a lick of anything new? No go here, I’m afraid, do a Googlite or Bingly search if you want, or Duck Go a few terms and you’ll find it. Why so easy? Because it was popular enough already for a reissue duh. No one but a fool with too much money and vanity issues is going to fart out another version for the hell of it unless they can make that cash son. Scarlet Slaughterer, a legendary release by Polish blackened thrash scum Magnus, is an exception to the usual, even though it’s not clear if the band actually still exists. This be a necro release folks!
This isn’t the only reissue of note by Chinese overlord Awakening Records, it just happens to be the one released on Christmas for all your merriness to end. Magnus were legends for a number of reasons, the least of which was the fact they were belting out riff gore in the 1980s right at the end of a wave of Polish Soviet oppression the likes of which would make a “Feel the Bern” socio-anarcho-patriot swear off coffee and voting third party. Scarlet Slaughterer is an opus of sorts, not simply as a showcase of the band’s talents in the original time in which it was first printed, but also how incredibly well they’ve aged. For an Eastern European blackened thrash tape dump from a defunct-after-four-releases Polish label over twenty years ago that you probably never heard of, this stuff shreds. And it would shred without that status. It would shred if it were this year it was first released, but this special version includes rare art and some bonus tracks, which is another reason I allowed it on here, but listening alone will sell you.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Magnus – Scarlet Slaughterer
Awakening Records
Cover Art: Roman Strackiewicz
4.6 / 5
