Review by Michael on April 14, 2024.

German Dark Horizon is a band that has existed for almost 20 years but they just released their 2nd full-length studio album Darkness Falls Upon Mankind in March. Apart from those two, they released a demo back in 2008 and in 2017 an EP. I got Darkness Falls Upon Mankind straight from the band (thank you!!) and with it, they were also very kind and sent me some further press information. So let me introduce the band in a little bit more detail to you. Dark Horizon was formed in 2007 hailing from Kassel in Hesse with the intention to worship the Scandinavian and German black metal scene back from the 90s with a mixture of melody, melancholy, and disharmony.

Okay, so much for the history. Let's see if Darkness Falls Upon Mankind really comes true. Having a glimpse of the cover, the few of you who are into the extreme metal scene might notice the similarity to the debut album by Shunyata which isn't the biggest surprise if you check the cover artist. This is Juanjo Castellano who did a very good job with this cover which spreads dark and cold atmosphere. This is already a good start, I would say. But is the atmosphere also conveyed into the music? I would say yes. The first six songs especially spread a very frosty Scandinavian atmosphere with the promised melodies and melancholy but also with a lot of hatred and fast tremolo riffs. You can clearly recognize their major influences like Dissection (huge) and the (not-so-huge) Gates Of Ishtar or The Moaning but they also have a lot of their own creativity to appear, they’re not just sheer copy-cats. And with their last creation ('Ekpyrosis') they also let creep in some more epic and highly melodic tunes that sometimes remind me of the Viking era Bathory. Apart from the melodic arrangements they have put much more fury and aggression into their compositions than a lot of their role models. When it comes to the vocals, they sound much more pissed off and full of anger. The guitar work is awesome too. The melodies the Hessians composed are without question almost equal to a lot of reference albums back from the 90s. The drums sound very powerful and well-timed and frame the aggressive mood perfectly and the production which was done by Andy Classen (I guess older folks should remember him as a member of Holy Moses) is what I want to hear from a black metal band. The bass sound isn't too fat and the balance between the instruments is good. The guitar sound is a little bit sterile and cold, well, just like what Dissection did back in the 90s.

So let me just state here that their compositions have become really convincing (only the German track 'Am Tag Meines Todes' has turned out a little bit tough to handle because of its length and slower pace) and as a cherry on top Dark Horizon serves us two interesting covers. The first one is 'The Brimstone Gate' by Swedish legends Naglfar from their second album “Diabolical” and the second one is 'King Of The Distant Forest' by their countrymen Mithotyn from their same-titled second album. Both are pretty close to the original, which I don't consider too bad. I know some people that always complain about cover versions that are too close to the original but I personally hate it when they turn out completely different from the original. Only “Wish You Were Here (Now Go Away)” by Brutal Truth is an exception. Fuck Pink Floyd!

If you need some nostalgic feelings this spring and wish you were here back in 1996 (to catch up with fucking Pink Floyd again) you should check out Darkness Falls Upon Mankind. And let me fall back to my question about the atmosphere concerning the music – the cover and music match perfectly.

Rating: 8.9 out of 10

Review by Felix on September 23, 2024.

“Hello, here we are and we want to destroy everything. We start right now. Bad luck for you.” The greeting from the trio called Bunker 66 should sound something like this if it is to express the band's attitude. “Infernö Interceptörs” is a typical infusion with black thrashing speed metal madness. It is short (the album does not cross the 28 minutes mark), it is full of toxin-producing bacteria and it bursts with energy. It has this “let us take the world by storm” feeling that gives (good) debuts their special momentum. Of course, the album also houses shabby, rancid and f**ked up elements. But it goes without saying that these are necessary ingredients for the style that Bunker 66 perform and they do not hurt the overall impression; quite the opposite. Only the lyrics deliver a few dubious details. Those of “Night of the Scream Queen” is completely misogynist and sexist. I don’t know why this is necessary. But okay, at least “Chubby Love” has another, more humorous and violence-free message concerning women.

Anyway, music-wise Bunker 66 leave no wishes unfulfilled. “Infernö Interceptörs” scores with brutal dynamic, restless power and fanatic dedication. It does not suffer from an amateurish, thin low-fi production. The mix combines technical competence and an intended amount of filth in a more or less perfect manner and with that said all single components come into their own. The masculine lead vocals reflect strength, the background vocals set successful accents in the choruses. The guitar sound is wonderful, the rhythm section does its job flawlessly. Naturally, all these positive building blocks result in a very convincing overall picture. Each and every one of the eight songs leaves its aroma and there are almost no quality differences between the individual songs. Maybe “Storm of the Usurper” cannot fully compete with some of the other tracks, but it also does not lack temperament, tempo and terror.

The average velocity is high, the riffs are cool, the fun is great. What more do we want when it comes to such a bastard that spreads the vibes of early Venom, Bulldozer and Warfare? Yes, these three-pieces have their own special flavour. The Brabbs/Brabbs/Ward line-up of Tank confirms this and of course, Lemmy’s three-man army hovers over everything. Tracks like “Witch Flights & Sexy Nights” (with cool high-pitched screams and a wonderful, massive flow) or the unresting “Chubby Love” (which spreads vibes like Warfare’s “Let the Show Go On” or “New Age of Total Warfare”) make my day and even the lyrically stupid “Night of the Scream Queen” is musically simply fantastic. Even the final track which is “only” an instrumental is fascinating due to its murderous coherence and its bloody guitar work.

Lastly, I would like to shed some light on the topic of sustainability. Not in a political sense, of course, I'm interested in the question of how long you can enjoy this music. That varies from time to time with this simple type of blackened thrash speed metal. For example, I think Toxic Holocaust's albums are good, but they don't grow on repeated listens and in some ways remain relatively one-dimensional and flat. The albums by Bunker 66 (and thus also “Infernö Interceptörs”) speak a different language. They never cease to inspire me, and I could imagine that I am not an isolated case.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10