Review by Maciek on October 19, 2019.

I'm not looking into what happens in the independent/underground scene in metal very often as it's difficult enough to stay on track of all big labels' releases. But if I only find some extra time and catch some hint on where to look, I like to try and find out if there is anything new brewing in dark corners of my favorite music genre, what new things are invented.

Faust is a band from Wyszków and came to life around 1996. The band released two full albums in 2000 and 2004 and went on a hiatus, with musicians getting involved in other projects afterwards, musical and non-musical. This year brings us revival of the band, with mainman Tomasz "Kaman" Dąbrowski coming up with the new ideas and an album with a very strong statement. The whole album sheds a light on the issue of pedophilia in catholic church, or rather I should say it's pointing a massive ray of blinding light on the issue, showing the contrast between people who like to pose as being moral guides and the innocence of their victims.

But let's start with the basics. The band is playing a mixture of death and thrash metal with various influences and quite recognisable Polish way of playing death metal that stems from Slayer-style riffs. The style is quite varied with a good mixture of fast and slow tempos. The fastest track is probably "Homo Homini Deus", slowest - "Samotność" and the rest of tracks being in the middle of that range. The influences, apart from Slayer, that can be heard quite clearly are definitely Vader or Hate from their more death metal albums. The album also contains an interesting version of "In the Name of God" (Unleashed cover) with more thrashy edge. Riffs are also sometimes reminding me of Norwegian style, with echoes of Thorns (or at least this band comes first to my mind now). Rhythm section is varied and having Pavulon behind drums obviously guarantees that no matter if the track is fast or slow, you get another example of his impressive skills. The vocalist uses various techniques, with some melodic vocals as well as some screams, but generally it's more in a thrash metal style than death metal, so it's a very interesting mixture. But since lyrics are touching very disturbing subjects you also get quite a lot of background sounds to enhance the experience. If Polish is not your native language, you should definitely get hold of lyrics and get some translator to work. That should help you understand why these sounds are there as the subject is very disturbing.

To sum it up - this is a solid death/thrash production, I definitely like the sound of the band, riffs are really great, musical compositions are well matched with lyrics, vocalist is doing good job at expressing the emotions behind the lyrics and the rhythm section couldn't be better. And bearing in mind this album is a comeback after about 16 years of hiatus I just can't wait for another, hoping the band will continue releasing new music and maybe do some touring. Also, since it's a self-released album I'm impressed by the level of dedication, get your hands on the CD as the cover is a true piece of art, done in the style of Hellmouth, also to match perfectly lyrics of each track.

Rating 8 out of 10