Review by Carl on August 19, 2023.

Well, turns out Sebastian Bach and Skid Row were right, the youth has gone wild. After Wretched Inferno and Pissrot, I'm having another crew of young rapscallions on my hand, tearing my after-work peace and quiet to shreds once again. They are called Atonement, and they are hellbent to make sure you won't forget who they are!

Dealing in a vicious style of thrash/death metal that draws influences from both the first albums of German noiseniks such as Darkness, Kreator and Deathrow, as well as the earliest works by late 80's/early 90's death-ish thrashers like France's Massacra and Agressor, Swedens Merciless and Insanity (US). The bulk of the material speeds forth with thrashing force, interspersed with some stomping mid tempo parts and vicious shredding guitar leads, with the acidic croaking vocals giving the whole a black metal touch in the vein of late 80's Bathory. Listening to the album as a whole, I can't help but think of Atonement as being a somewhat more primitive version of Belgium's Slaughter Messiah, which certainly is no bad thing in my book. Here and there I even pick up on a few speed metal touches a la Agent Steel or Hallow's Eve in the savage riffing, which helps to make this album just that bit more varied. This is some vicious metal, right here!

The production fits the bill just perfectly. It's raw and powerful, energetic and aggressive, and it scratches that old school itch just right! Especially the natural drum sound is balm for the ears. The mix is balanced out well enough, not perfect, but just that little bit flawed enough to establish the needed retro feel that a release like this should emanate.

This is a fine blast of 80's metal worship done absolutely right, that's for sure! It had me thinking "where does this remind me of, again?" throughout, but you don't need proggy multi-layered suites or 10 minute sitar solo's in this style of retro rage, now do you? It does exactly what you want it to do, and everyone into honest and aggressive thrash steeped in 80's atmosphere is going to have a blast with this!

Rating: 8 out of 10