Threatening eardrums (and spelling enthusiasts) everywhere since 1989, Germany’s Desaster are back with their tenth album – and their first in four years. Following on from 2021’s Churches Without Saints, Kill All Idols finds the band retaining the same line up, which now seems firmly bedded in on this crushing ten-track album. Tracked in the rehearsal room with live mixer Jan “Janosch” Gensheimer, who clearly knows how to get the best out of the band in terms of performance, the album was then mixed and mastered by Greg Wilkinson of Autopsy, who gave the album the final push it needed.
It opens, appropriately enough, with a mushroom cloud – the signal for Desaster to unleash hell on Great Repulsive Force. Initially a churning cauldron of blackened riffs and old school death metal in the vein of obituary, the band’s more expansive ambitions are laid bare at the track’s heart, when thunderous drums and eerie riffing draws things in a doom direction, before a final eruption sets them racing once more towards the end. It’s an impressive start, with Greg’s deft hand at the console ensuring that it all sounds suitably huge without sacrificing the grit of the band’s performance. Next up, the propulsive groove of Emanation Of The Profane is strangely catchy, for all that Satanic sounds like he’s trying to vomit his spleen into the microphone. Driven by Hont’s excellent work behind the kit, it keeps the audience hooked and then, on Towards Oblivion, it’s Inferno’s time to shine, as he kicks the track off with a howling lead break. Having set the scene, the band plunge headlong into a blazing track of hardcore infused metal, all clattering percussion, smudged riffing, and sneering vocals. Faster and harder, as befitting its title, Kill The Idol is an old school thrash assault – part Kreator, part Autopsy – and it takes no prisoners, Satanic spitting the vocals into the microphone as the band lay down hell behind him. It’s followed by Ash Cloud Ritual, which wraps up the first half with aplomb, the mid-tempo riffing that dominates the song carrying even greater weight than some of the faster elements that surround it.
Kicking off the second half, the mid-paced Fathomless Victory finds the band exploring a lighter style that opens up their sound, placing a sharper focus on Satanic’s increasingly powerful vocals. In contrast, the frenzied introduction to Throne Of Ecstasy is but taste of what’s to come, the band slamming through one of the album’s fastest songs in just over three minutes. It gets better. The sub-three-minute smash ‘n’ grab hardcore of They Are The Law inverts the premise of Anthrax’s Judge Dredd influenced anthem and rips it to pieces in a haze of alcohol induced paranoia.
Having comprehensively shattered the listener’s senses, the band return to the churning death metal of Autopsy on Stellar Remnant, with Odin’s throbbing bass underpinning a dark, almost hypnotic assault. It leaves Idol’s End (Outro) to see this oppressive beast of an album out on a high. Don’t let the fact that it’s called an outro fool you – a three-minute instrumental, it’s a curtain closer that reasserts the impressive musicianship that lies at the heart of the band’s longevity.
Fans of extreme metal need look no further, Desaster have unveiled a gem. Ferocious, gritty and raw, it is the antidote to the increasingly processed and soulless music found elsewhere in modern metal, and it’s delivered with both heart and skill. Fans of Autopsy, Aura Noir, Kreator, and Kataklysm will all find much to enjoy here, as the band tearing through ten memorable, varied songs over the course of some forty minutes. Grab a copy, crank it up, and prepare a neck brace – this is one evil little fucker indeed. 9/10
