Holocausto - "War Metal Massacre" (Nuclear War Now! Productions, 2017)

Band: Holocausto
Title: War Metal Massacre
Genre: Black/Thrash Metal
Time: 23 min
Year: 5th March 2017
Rating: 70/100













The Brazilians Holocausto, one of the very first true progenitors of the so-called "war metal", are back with a very very special mini-album! Recorded with the same identical line-up of their seminal "Campo de Exterminio" (Cogumelo Records, 1987), "War Metal Massacre" represents for Holocausto a decisive return to the raw style with which they are now very known and respected into the underground before they abandoned it to embrace various styles ranging from a more standard thrash metal to thrashcore through unrecognizable experimentations like "Negatives". To emphasize this welcome return to the roots, Holocausto have even re-recorded 3 their very old songs: "Massacre" taken directly from their 1985 demo with the same name (!), and "Destruição Nuclear" and "Escarro Napalm" from the fundamental "Warfare Noise Vol.1" compilation edited by Cogumelo in 1986 (!!). Now, if the first part of "War Metal Massacre" is composed of the aforementioned numbers, its second one consists completely of new songs. I have already to say that, among the innumerable returns of more or less old glories from the past happened in these last years, "War Metal Massacre" is surely one of the most surprising ones!


In fact, this EP is surprising because there are no stylistic differences between the old and the new songs, ergo it seems seriously to be remained into the wilder '80s of the extreme South American metal during the listening of "War Metal Massacre"! This means that Holocaust plays exactly as at that time with their black/thrash metal in the same vein of Sarcófago, just played even in a more primitive and chaotic way.

Specifically, we are talking about very ferocious songs where there is no fuckin' space for melodies, the guitar solos are totally banned while the fast tempos (included blast-beats) reigns undisputed also if interrupted here and there by some those mid-slow tempos (as in "Massacre" or "Escarro Napalm") used also by bands like Blasphemy. For the rest, there is the bestial vocal performance by Rodrigo Führer, that spit out always an unsustanable fury despite the years pass and, fortunately, he does neither rejected his controversial nom de guerre. But we don't forget the now classic warfare noises like machine-gun fires (as in the new final of "Escarro Napalm") or siren raids (as in the apocalyptic intro of the Side B). And Holocausto continues to grind with hate and total devastation also through the new songs like "Eu Sou a Guerra" (awesome is the entrance of Führer into the this episode!) or the same titletrack but never reserving particular surprises to the listeners, hence showing always a very homogeneous style.

In general, "War Metal Massacre" is a very good return by these 4 veterans, spewing forth a perennial violence as the South American tradition wants and introducing this new onslaught with a cover artwork (made by the Australian artist Barney Fried) that seems to be a continuation of the one of "Campo de Exterminio". But I have to say that I prefer the original versions of the old songs. In fact, these ones have some differences (also important) with their first recordings because, for example, "Escarro Napalm" lacks of that guitar solo present in the original version of this number. This means that Holocausto are even more primitive and direct than their very early days!

Tracklist:

1 - Intro
2 - Massacre
3 - Destruição Nuclear
4 - Escarro Napalm
5 - Intro War
6 - Eu Sou a Guerra
7 - Corpo Seco/ Mão Morta
8 - War Metal Massacre

Line-up:

Rodrigo Führer - vocals
Valerio Exterminator - guitars
Anderson Guerrilheiro - bass/vocals
Nedson Warfare - drums

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Nuclear War Now! Prod: http://www.nwnprod.com/