Eighteenth album for the legend Destruction is.
Formed in 1983 under the name King of Demon by Schmier (bass/vocals), the band is now completed by Randy Black (drums, ex-Annihilator, ex-Primal Fear), Damir Eski? (guitar, Gomorra) and Martin Furia (guitar, Bark, Furia) and continues its career with the release of Birth of Malice, via Napalm Records.
A short sample greets us, but it’s indeed anguish that awaits us with Birth of Malice, the first composition, followed by Old School Thrash fury on Destruction, a title both evocative and so effective. We feel raw 80s sound mixed with a terribly catchy contemporary mix, as on Cyber Warfare, which features modern samples and cavernous choruses on the choruses, creating a contrast with the piercing solos. The vindictive tone continues with No Kings – No Masters, which picks up at a frenetic pace and features refrains that we can already anticipate for live performances, but also furious leads that we find on the unhealthy Scumbag Human Race. The appeal is simple: misanthropy shines through on this track, but there are also plenty of melodies, as God Of Gore literally accelerates the violence and adds ominous elements to accentuate the darkness. There’s a slight moment of respite with A.N.G.S.T., but the catchy heavy influences return for this slower but just as heavy track that will rattle the skulls of even the most reluctant, while Dealer Of Death takes us back to the late ’90s for one of the band’s most unifying and accessible tracks. The atmosphere changes for Evil Never Sleeps, which gets darker but the leads offer very different tones and bring us back to the melodies, while Chains Of Sorrow returns to the heart of the matter with the kind of aggressive riffs the band has been offering for over 40 years. Greed follows without a break with its jerky riffs and piercing leads, but the band is already about to put an end to our pleasure with the well-known sample of Fast As A Shark, a cover of their compatriots Accept where they go wild, paying tribute to this monument to Heavy Metal at full speed.
If Destruction is over forty years old, you can imagine that nothing happens by chance. Even if the band has scrupulously applied the same recipe since its inception, Birth of Malice is just as enjoyable as their first productions!
90/100