(written by Islander)
Let’s cut to the chase and then come back and fill in the details.
What you’re about to hear is a song called “Street General“. Its lyrical protagonist is an evil force, a leader of killers who stalk the streets at night in search of innocent souls to destroy.
The song as a whole is also evil to the core, a generally high-speed death/thrashing attack with murder on its mind, but with the kind of multi-faceted dynamism calculated to keep listeners on the edge of their shaking seats (and to start heads spinning).
To be sure, “Street General” doesn’t run riot immediately. Instead, Deceptor create an aura of menacing tension and encroaching danger, inflicting slowly booming beats, neck-cracking snare-chops, and insidiously slithering fretwork. When they do let loose the riot, they do so with cutting riffage that viciously swarms like hornets, drums that vigorously gallop, and maliciously barking death growls.
But the band also suddenly downshift, and the riffing insidiously whines and claws, paving the way to a surprising guitar solo that seems to miserably whine, intriguingly spiral, and then frantically convulse, a fluid and chilling apparition in the midst of all the beastliness.
Deceptor then follow that curiously entrancing solo with a head-moving, gut-punching, chug-fest, yet still interspersed with dismal whining riffage. And then they up-shift shift the gears again for another guitar solo — and this one is more ecstatic, still fluid but also more fret-melting, and ultimately a squirming manifestation of freakishness.
In the head-twisting way the song ends after that second solo, the Coroner influence really seems to shine.
Now, to fill in the details:
“Street General” is off the debut album of North Carolina’s Deceptor. Aptly titled Reign of Terror, it will be released on August 21st by Dying Victims Productions.
Deceptor is led by vocalist/bassist Gabriel Earley, who is responsible for writing the music and lyrics, graphic design, and production, mixing, and mastering. He is a self-taught musician who started Deceptor in his bedroom and was eventually joined by guitarist Preston Lanier and drummer Andrew Harper.
They’ve drawn the lion’s share of influence from metal that emerged between 1988 and 1992, from “old Sepultura, Whiplash, and Protector on the thrashier end of things to Viogression, Ripping Corpse, and early Gorguts on the deathlier – and then Coroner, squarely in between” (to quote the album’s PR materials).
The new album was preceded by Deceptor’s Bathed in Blood EP in 2023 and then by the “Street General” digital single released the next year, which has been re-recorded for the album in the cut you’ve just heard (that’s what makes this a premiere!).
Dying Victims will release Reign of Terror on vinyl LP and CD formats, and you can pre-order via the link below. We’re also including a stream of the album’s first single, “Whammer“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://tinyurl.com/deceptorreignofterror
DECEPTOR:
https://deceptorthrash.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/deceptorthrash