AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: HELLCRASH — “MARK OF THE BEAST”

(written by Islander)

We had an album review earlier today that compared the band’s music to a dish prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. What’s coming next is like a horde of exultant demons blasting through those restaurant doors on full-throttle Harleys and blow-torching all the diners for the greater glory of Satan.

Sedate and sophisticated or inventively avant-garde, this is is not. It’s hell-raising heavy metal, evil and electrifying to the core, pure-grade adrenaline served through the ears. But that doesn’t mean this sulfurous song is slap-dash or sloppy — far from it. It deserves its own chef’s kiss (along with a fuckload of horns thrown to the sky).

What we’re talking about, as you can see, is a song named “Mark of the Beast” from the devil-spawned Italian rampagers in Hellcrash. It’s off their third album Inferno Crematörio, which is set for release on May 23rd by Dying Victims Productions, and we’re presenting it through a lyric video.

We’ll venture the guess that there’s no way anyone with a taste for thrash and speed metal will be able to sit still while Hellcrash race through “Mark of the Beast“. It’s just too damned thrilling and reflexively muscle-moving for sedate contemplation.

There’s undeniable delirium in the wildly roiling and exultantly screaming riffage, which is tuned to the tone of fire. But from very early on, the song features an equally exhilarating bass performance, which somehow manages to escape immolation by the guitars. On top of that, the channel-shifting vocals expel the gloriously blasphemous lyrics with equally hellish intensity while the drums maniacally pump, pound, and convulse.

Yet while the overarching sensation of the song is one of flame-throwing chaos, Hellcrash constantly create variations in the riffing, including a tempo-shifting segment where the guitars and an ensuing fret-melter of a solo sound like spellcasters of black sorcery. The music blazes, bounds, and swiftly darts, and a second solo adds yet another experience, one that seems to wail in misery.

Even in the closing fireball of delirium, the band continue switching things up, surgically locked in but still crazed.

So, to return to our strained dining metaphors, Hellcrash may be true hellions, but they’re also expert craftsmen for the kind of riotous music they’ve chosen, and there is in truth a kind of refinement in the relentless dynamism of their songwriting that deserves stars, even if they’ll never get them from the Michelins of the world.

The dynamism exhibited in just that one song comes through in other ways across the record — including the surprise of a 10-minute closing song, “Templars’ Curse“. We’re not able to share that one yet, but below we do have streams of two other previously released songs, the title track “Inferno Crematörio” and “Black Fire Demon“.

HELLCRASH is:
Skullcrusher – Bass
Hellraiser – Vocals, Guitars
A.R. Evilbringer – Drums

Inferno Crematörio features cover artwork by Samuele Scalise. Dying Victims will release it on CD, on variant vinyl LP formats, and digitally. Find pre-orders via the links below.

PRE-ORDER:
https://www.dyingvictims.com
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/inferno-cremat-rio

HELLCRASH:
https://www.facebook.com/HellcrashMetal/
https://www.instagram.com/hellcrash_speedmetal