(written by Islander)
A decade has passed since the Finnish metal band Rapid released their first demos, eventually leading to their 2022 debut EP Blackstar Oppression Regime. The music captured in those four songs has rightly been described on behalf of their label as an electrifying collision of “the urgency of hardcore punk, the hook-oriented propulsion of speed metal, and the spidery aura of old-wave black metal”.
Here we are, four years later, and Rapid’s debut album Enter the Realm of Fire is set for release on August 21st by Dying Victims Productions, and we’ll help you get your week off to a diabolical start with the premiere of an album track called “Moonless Night“.
If you listen to that previous EP (and you still should, here) you’ll experience wild, blood-rushing delirium that sounds loose and lascivious, along with experiences of black magic devilry. The riffing is hot and fast, the soloing fiendishly ecstatic, the drumming on the verge of flying off the road, and the vocals a fast-changing mix of viciously gnashing snarls, vibrato wails, and high-flying falsettos.
Rapid also insinuated bursts of death-rocking guitar leads, sinister electronics, and a ghoulish and ghastly overture for the closing song “Marines of the Blackstar” (which ends with the dismal clang of the bass), and they wrapped everything in an organic-sounding production that gave the music the authenticity of an alcohol-fueled rehearsal-room recording.
The band’s new album preserves much of what made the EP such a pulse-punching and spine-chilling eye-opener. The music still doesn’t sound over-produced; the riffing and the leads are still both hellishly sinister and borderline-psychotic (but also virally infectious); the drumming still sounds on the brink of going off the rails; and the demon-spawned vocals are still impressively varied.
The song we’re premiering today demonstrates all that, but it also creates visions of some midnight warlock ritual that involves the spilling of various bodily fluids as a means of opening Hell’s gates and seeing what comes out. It proceeds with a mid-paced punk-rock beat, the riffing eerily rings and quivers as well as slashes, and the quavering clean vocals, which soar straight up from nasty gut-cutting snarls, are piercing.
The soloing is freakish; the guitars go into jittery spasms; the music also rises up like haughty fanfares of horned glory; and massed voices create added chills. Perhaps needless to say, its hooks dig in too.
These are our impressions from the music. Lyrically, the song is a frightening supernatural tale, a tale of a town being destroyed by a “coven of sin” in a “reign of pure madness” and “uncontrolled mayhem”, with “echoes of screams fill[ing] the ruins” by the end.
Dying Victims will release Enter the Realm of Fire on vinyl LP and CD formats, and you can pre-order it now. After the links we’ve also included a stream of the previously released first single off the record, “Witchcraft of Horror“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://tinyurl.com/realmoffire
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/enter-the-realm-of-fire
RAPID:
https://rapidmetal.bandcamp.com/
DYING VICTIMS:
https://www.facebook.com/dyingvictimsproductions/