Barbarian – Viperface (Regressive to the Core but Not a Bore Thrash Metal)
I like the way these guys play, on two counts. One, the literally playing of the music, and two, the playing with the audience. Not so easy a task when you be playing that retro type of thrash, which can sink into its own past too often and lose the listener in bygone eras, but starting off by calling this “regressive metal,” as Barbarian does, sets the listener up in a different fashion. Namely, you’re going into this expecting the old, but getting in as something new.
Consisting of a dude I know from Children of Technology, another stellar Italian thrash outfit, Barbarian are more antiquated in sound, purposefully so as they clearly state they “interrogate the present” with “retrogardism.” Simply put, again by the band itself, “Heavy Metal is the whip, and you bleed.” That pretty much covers the entire review of this one. The recording quality is clear as shit but easily placed a few decades prior with a modern, harder edge in the vocals, which are maintained at a torn-throat level with a slight blackened quality. The drums are simplistic, the riffs written by a child, the drums sampled from Celtic Frost, but man does it blast. Another case of classic is, or at least can be, best.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Barbarian – Viperface
Hells Headbangers Records
Cover Art: Velio Josto
4.1 / 5
