Review by Carl on April 18, 2022.

I remember first running into these guys back in my teens, finding a copy of their first album Life Sucks ..., with it's crappy so-bad-it-becomes-good cover art and unpolished, raucous musical content, and later buying Tower Of Spite which bored the arse out of me for reasons I can't really explain. It just did. Because of this I really haven't been paying attention to their dealings from that album last mentioned on, until recently I bought this album for cheap, and I must say that I'm still not totally on board with their brand of thrash metal with some slight crusty edges.

Contrary to Tower Of Spite, I do know exactly what it is that bugs me on this particular album, and that is the lack of velocity. Opener 'Bastards', that has a cool Amebix feel to it, acts more like an intro than a genuine song, with 'Descent Into The Unconsciousness' being the real opener. A Testament/Metallica style riff promises a thrash tornado about to be unleashed, but deteriorates into a mid-tempo slog with some tedious lackluster drumming right away, something that keeps popping up throughout the album, with tracks like 'Veil Of Tears', 'Sphereborn' or 'Mammonite' as examples of this. The music moves along, sure, but it never really gets going, if you know what I mean. It's not like they turned into a 90's groove metal band, but as a thrash band this falls flat on its face. Step on the accelerator, guys! It's the one right next to the brakes.

By now, you probably think that I hate this album, but that's not the case either. There is quite some to be enjoyed here. Take the double kick driven parts in 'Middle Third' and the aforementioned 'Mammonite' that manage to propel dealings straight forward. It also has to be mentioned that throughout the album the riffing is tight and on point, with a cool sound to the guitar work production-wise, and vocals that sound awesome and, in true hardcore punk fashion, really menacing. Interestingly enough, my personal favorite track is the doomed-out slow burner 'Beyond Jerusalem', sounding like Celtic Frost one time and early Paradise Lost the next. Great track all-round!

The cd versions have 3 bonus tracks. One original, 'Maimed To Beg', which finally sees the band diving head first into some manic hardcore thrash rage, even if it sounds a tad neutered by the perhaps too clean (for a band like Cerebral Fix at least) production. The other bonus tracks are cover versions of old school UK punk bands G.B.H. and The Damned. Nice to hear once or twice but pretty redundant in the end.

This is a pretty so-and-so album in its totality. It's not a bad effort, but it's clear the members were bored with what they had been doing, something underlined by the fact that in the band picture two of their members are wearing shirts of UK dance acts EMF and The KLF. Good chance that they were perhaps looking to try doing something different with their sound. They still had the Bay Area thrash metal riffs, but scaled back on the speed, while injecting groovier rhythms, ending up sounding confused, unfocused and, unfortunately, boring. Compared to the chaotic-yet-highly-entertaining approach of their debut, this album is a slog struggling to get started, even if there are some good ideas present.

Too bad they aren't good enough.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Review by Vladimir on February 16, 2023.

Italy isn’t a country well known for its black metal bands, but you certainly can’t deny that it didn’t give us some good ones throughout the years. It’s hard to tell if its scene is underrated or not, although it would seem fair to consider that a lot of Italy’s bands are quite underappreciated. The band I will be covering is Argesh and their debut full-length album Excommunica, released by Nero Corvino on September 14th 2021. The band dub their style as “Apostate Black Metal”, which they credit as a style inspired by bands like Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir, Mephorash, Schammasch, Deathspell Omega and etc. 

The album starts with 'Abiura', an instrumental track with a dramatic intro and spoken word, telling you that you’re about to get ear raped with blast beats and tremolo riffs from the get-go once the next song starts. It certainly turned out to be so with the next track 'Suffocate In Oxygen', which started out exactly as it was predicted, apocalyptic tremolo picking, blast beats and harsh shouting vocals that switch to growls. While the first track is indeed a “blaster”, the second track has a slower mid-tempo double-bass drumming that switches to a metalcore-like breakdown in the middle. This metalcore-like breakdown trait would make a return on fourth track 'Apocalypse 20.7-8-9'. It might be too early to jump to my opinion on the album itself, but I feel like it’s crucial to say what I think about Excommunica as a whole and what stops it from being great. First and foremost, it’s the drums. Although HHG is credited for doing the drums besides the guitars and backing vocals, it was obvious from the get-go that the drums were programmed since they sound way too artificial to be real, especially because of the kicks which sound more like clicks if you ask me. The artificial drum sound isn’t the only thing that bothers me a lot, but it’s also the fact that the drums are so loud that they completely bury the guitars in the mix, while the vocals somewhat manage to stay on track. The band’s musical style approach with its apocalyptic and satanic feel isn’t bad by any means, it’s actually well done, especially on the last track 'The Elohim's Mark' which might be my favorite of the bunch, but unfortunately, I was unable to fully enjoy the experience with the sound production being way to mishandled in my opinion. 

I can’t say for sure that it’s a bad release since it’s definitely a serious work with a lot of dedication and sweat put into it, just with a mishandled turn if you ask me. Although the sound production of Excommunica is obviously not a work of a total amateur who would probably crank everything up to 11, it could have used more touch up in the mix and master and ended up way better than it did. I don’t know what the future holds for this band, but I am certain that Argesh will fix these mistakes and continue to “sacrifice lambs in the name of Satan”, since the music is indeed very reminiscent of bands such as Behemoth and Deathspell Omega. 

Rating: 6.4 out of 10