Exmortus-Beyond the fall of time

Heavy Artillery
2011

Exmortus returns with their follow-up to 2008's In Hatred's Flame. It's a shame we had to wait three years for another album, but this one was worth the wait. This is pure throwback thrash/early death metal only with sharper production values than was given to the albums that Exmortus are influenced by. Slayer, Possessed and numerous other mid-late 80's will come to mind the second you pop this disc in your player. Once the short intro "Bane Forthcoming" wraps up we get trampeled by "Kneel before the steel". The lyrics are rather cliche and the music is fairly simple, but know to rip out the riffs and keep plunging forward and that sells it for me. Black XIII is a tad slower and gets bogged down by a not so clear direction, but the heavy beats and venomous vocals still propel it along enough. "Beyond the Nile" is a short and fairly slow instrumental that never quite does enough to make it memorable. "Entombed with the Pharoahs" is a slightly sloppy yet heavy early-Slayer inspired track. The vocals really make it worthwhile. "Destroy" begins a smack in the mouth type attack, but slows down some towards the middle. The tempo changes help keep this one interesting. "Crawling chaos" rides on the drums for much of it's length. They keep the speed going full throttle on this one. "Left to die in the paradox of time" attempts to put some more tempo changes in and honestly they are done pretty well. This might be the most focused song on the album. "Khronos" is a slower track with just a little bit of vocals tossed. It's okay, but seems more like a space holder than something that adds to the album although I repsect the attempt to try something different. The closer "The gathering" comes on sounding like a thrash band covering Maiden with a pinch of Helloween tossed in. Some diehard thrash fans might stewing in their high top Nikes over this one. However I think they do an admirable job mixing melodies with pure adrenaline. It ends the album on a powerful note. Exmortus definitely took some chances this time around and not all of them work, but there is certainly enough to make it worth checking out.