Review by Felix on December 11, 2023.

Total Hate is not the ultimately original name for a black metal band, but that’s no problem as long as the music makes up for this. Good news, the band from the city of evil Adolf’s Reichsparteitagen is aware of this fact. It is therefore only logical that “Lifecrusher – Contributions to a World in Ruins” scores with a defiant and robust musical content and with a World War II artwork. So far, so coherent. But let’s get into the details.

Introduced by strange sounds between industrial noise and air raid, the opener bursts vehemently out of the speakers. The first riffs fall like a ten ton hammer on your head and slowly the iron beast called “Violent Demise” starts rolling. Its dragging first segment is the last calm before the storm. High velocity is on the agenda and the sandpaper vocals are greatly supported by the apocalyptic approach of the instrumentalists. Total Hate find a good way between primitive eruptions and a sufficient number of breaks. They are not interested in wallowing in technical narcissism, but they definitely do not lack manual skills as well. The intense, slightly unclean production does not wipe away them.

While the band rumbles through the ruins that their sound causes, it gets slightly problematic that really sustainable elements are missing to a certain degree. There are no annoying components, but sometimes I don’t feel to be “in the song”. Is this my contribution to a world in ruins? Being just the distanced listener? Maybe, but finally the last track teaches me to be (partially) wrong. It’s not just another closer. “Infested by Parasites” seems to be the monument among the ruins with a length of almost 15 minutes, but this is a fallacy. More than five minutes of silence separate the closer from a hidden track – I don’t think that makes sense, but okay… Anyway, “Infested by Parasites” needs no intro or warm up period. Right from the get go, an exciting guitar line motivates the drums to a speedy top performance (or vice versa, this is not crucial here). Total Hate create an inferno with hardly perceptible melodies. Nevertheless, they are there and they are brilliant. The break after four minutes also works. It does not only bring a very edgy, slow-paced line to light. In addition, it seems to open Pandora’s box with regard to the many painful screams that can be heard.

Conclusion: words like “sensational” or “groundbreaking” cannot be used to describe this album honestly, but despite some standardized black metal parts of the Teutonic kind, the album also holds at least two really strong songs at the the beginning and the end. Additionally we get a melodic, dark and great solo in the also pretty well done “Instruments of His Wrath”. The world is able to fall in ruins without “Lifecrusher”, but it is better to do it with this release.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10