Review by Greg on March 5, 2025.

I'm a simple man who loves seeing black and blue roughly everywhere: I see an artwork like this, I'm interested. But the second thing that catches my eye is: is it supposed to be a thrash metal album? This is starting to get tricky. What to expect then? Hailing from Blackpool, UK, Blacklist is another new (if slightly unoriginal) name in the scene, and this With Murderous Intent is their sophomore album, released in the summer of 2024.

Indeed, the experience is peculiar. When you've got your revival thrash albums that are so retro they basically become imitations of the old school (more or less successful, not synonymous with 'ugly' by default, but results may vary), this With Murderous Intent lies at the opposite end of the spectrum, arguably featuring as much modernity as you can find in the genre – not necessarily the absolute best the modern school has to offer, but it surely and interestingly shows how many influences a style generally thought to be stale and outdated has absorbed in this day and age. 'Modern' is a word I feel I'm gonna repeat a thousand times in this review, like also modern are the blast-beats spurts in 'Blood Baptism', or the somewhat Within the Ruins-esque tapping melodies springing every now and then in 'Cannibal', or the symphonic undercurrents earning a couple of Cradle of Filth comparisons... with some help from the frequent blackened shrieks, a new addition to the previous, average gritty vocals, a tag team that reminded me of US dissonant crossover weirdos Expander ('Kill The Coroner' almost sounds taken straight from Neuropunk Boostergang).

And so forth, of course all the way to the ultra-modern (yet again) production, rivaling the likes of Terrifier's masterpiece "Weapons of Thrash Destruction" in terms of compression, that is still, for a change, decidedly massive and, most of all, doesn't neuter the power of the instruments, especially the barbaric drums. It's a plus when you've got a drummer like Matt Longshaw that is able to push things to their logical extreme, like in 'The Dismemberment Blade', giving the fastest moments of Harlott and similar hyperfast outfits a run for their money. It's an intense song, cleverly and strategically placed in the middle with the simple intention to obliterate your fucking skull amidst the more measured episodes.

Indeed, most of With Murderous Intent is spent on different, slower territories, and this is the point you'd expect me to claim it just doesn't thrash enough, give it a 65%, and close the whole thing with a generic ending. But, guess what, it is not this day. For a band that likes to experiment so much, I actually feared that limiting themselves to their original genre's boundaries would have resulted in partial, uninspiring failure. The album opens with 'Cannibal', perhaps the only 'pure' thrasher to be found, and I still liked it – although it may well have something to do with me being a caveman – but the highest points have to be found elsewhere. 'The Shape' in particular is a beast of a track, teasing with another hyper-violent intro before a more measured, impressive refrain and an excellent solo. 'Naturom Demonto' isn't too far removed either, another effective track for its horror movie-themed story, a constant of the whole work. But what's true is that, yeah, sometimes I'd have longed for more. I consider myself a huge proponent of mixing tempos in your album, but I wouldn't call Blacklist masters of the craft, I mean. Several songs start off at full speed before abandoning it, some conversely get brutally sped up with no forewarning ('Nostromo', 'Lethal Infection'). The whole thing can feel too scatterbrained at times, for better or worse. Not that its fruition is made easy by the tiresome vocals, either.

All these facets of the sound did logically make me think of their Bulgarian peers in Terravore and their coeval Spiral of Downfall (out a handful of months earlier), and I'm not saying it only because they both feature a song called 'Nostromo', amusingly – even if here it's regrettably one of the most forgettable ones – they're spiritually similar, with several songs probably too long for their own good, that nevertheless often leave you interested in where they're heading, plus a considerable deal of non-archetypical elements. I was inclined towards a higher rating this time, but the final trio is the reason I can't trespass the 80% threshold; as Blacklist kept throwing you all their (numerous) ideas constantly and at all times, the fact that, several spins later, I can't remember anything off them, especially the 8 minutes of the closer and title-track, isn't just a good sign.

Overall, With Murderous Intent is an album with several features that shouldn't appeal to me, but when it really strikes and you feel its aggression, it tastes of sincerity, of passion and vigour, and thrash, even if this far from the standards, is still supposed to be about that. As such, it's hard not to be satisfied, most of the time. I just wish Blacklist played to their strengths more often.

Rating: 7.9 out of 10