NOCTURNAL BREED – We Only Came for the Violence
- Posted on 02-08-2019
The Norwegian scumbags collectively known as Nocturnal Breed recently spat forth this blackened thrash metal juggernaut appropriately named "We Only Came for the Violence", and it is as aggressive and unrefined as its title suggests. Thirteen hook-laden tracks bearing such over-the-top titles as "Nekrohagel" and "A Million Miles of Trench" that are hell-bent on punching your lights out and using your skull as an ashtray are what these ugly bastards offer, and the album draws heavily on classic old-school thrash metal ala Teutonic titans such as Sodom, Destruction, and to a way lesser extent Kreator. Celtic Frost, Sarcofago, and ancient Samael also come to mind here and there.
With riffs that shift back and forth between being galloping and pummeling as well as harsh vocal mutterings on top of a fierce rhythm section, Nocturnal Breed are a skilled and sufficiently tight unit and yet there is nothing even remotely rigid or stale about their compositions at all. In fact, you can sense a strong surge of spontaneity coursing through this cursed opus, which is great. The disc does drag on a bit towards the end and they could have made do with ten or eleven tunes as opposed to thirteen, but "We Only Came for the Violence" is undoubtedly a wicked and enjoyable offering. It may not be particularly inventive or original, but there is energy in spades here and these fuckers are clearly as insane now as they were when they first started out way back in 1996.
If crude black/thrash metal is what your alcohol-soaked heart desires, you cannot go wrong with this one. Should you feel the urge to sample the record first, may I suggest listening to "Sharks of the Wehrmacht" or "War-Metal Engine"? The former sounds like something AC/DC would have done had they been a bunch of perverted mental basket cases into underground metal while the latter boasts a main riff that sounds as if it would have fit right in on Gorgoroth’s Antichrist LP.