HEADS FOR THE DEAD
“SERPENT’S CURSE”
Album Review by Dark Juan

9/10

Heads For The Dead are: Considerably better than Wombbath!

HAUBER – Chants from the krypts. (I’m assuming this is the vocalist. I could be wrong.)
PETTERSSON – Symphonies of the curse. (Fuck knows what this man is actually doing. All I know is that he is in Wombbath too, and this band smears Wombbath’s pansy arse all over the nearest wall.)

Hello again, dear friends of debauchery, my fellow heretics and followers of the left hand path. Tonight we are looking at a death metal supergroup, apparently. I haven’t heard of either band that the members of Heads For The Dead are in. For the sake of completeness, they are Ursinne and Revel In Flesh. Pettersson is also in Wombbath. Don’t know whether I have mentioned that before. Anyway, I wish that Wombbath weren’t a band (because they massively suck) and that Pettersson did this band full time because this is fucking awesome. This is classic death metal mixed with a lot of crust punk – think Obituary and Bolt Thrower mixed with Lazarus Blackstar and you have the sound. Its dirty, disgusting, filthy metal covered in bodily fluids and dripping bits of its enemies off its knackered rusty black armour. It is bloody good brutal stuff then. This remarkably is also HFTD’s debut album. Bonus points awarded for being amazingly tight for a first record. They are also labelmates with the spectacularly wonderful P.H.O.B.O.S. on Transcending Obscurity Records. The record sounds like Satan has come to visit Earth and got as far as Tower Hamlets before deciding that laying the place to waste is a great idea and proceeding thusly with considerable demonic enthusiasm. The pitched battles between London street gangs and caco-daemons were a thing to behold. Knives buried between demonic eyeballs and smaller demons being kerb stomped (Think American History X) by teenaged gang members, while the older ones were strung up and eviscerated in the ruins by Elmek and Kaphis and the whole unholy mechanised host from the pits of hell. The unholy ones going about their task with considerable Satanic efficiency, because say what you like about the nether face of God, he’s a fucking good administrator and is very very good at punishing mistakes. In his organisation you don’t get repetitive faults. Anyway, in the rubble strewn aftermath of Tower Hamlets, Satan and his cohort having buggered off to sort out Woolwich or Wandsworth or some suchlike, among the shellshocked survivors and the ragged corpses, this record was left. We assume by one of Satan’s demons, because this could never have seen the light of day inside some mortal’s brain. This is punishing, visceral death metal played with considerable panache and a shitload of righteous rage and furious anger. One wonders who pissed these two off to this extent and whether it involved having sex with their mothers. I like the sound of this monstrosity too. It is crystal clear and very well produced, having an absolutely colossal sound. I especially like the guitar sound, very reminiscent of Napalm Death at their finest. I also hear echoes of Deicide, Morbid Angel (mainly on some of the songs featuring keyboards, reminding me of Chapel Of Ghouls) and Terrorizer. There are also hints of my favourite death metal band, Necrophagist in some of the more complex arrangements of some songs although the guitarist is not of the same calibre as Mohammed Suicmez! Fine, fine influences to have if you are a death metal band. However, Heads For The Dead stand apart from run of the mill death metal with a welcome willingness to experiment with their sound. Not everything on this record is 5,000,000 miles per hour blastbeats, Deep Below in particular going for a slow grind that just liquefies your internal organs. Gatecreeper (Into The Great Beyond) is another highlight, with a vocal ranging from Dani Filth like falsetto shrieking to deep sepulchral throat rattling growling over a soundtrack composed of naked hatred, murder, machine guns and rage. This is the angriest, most passionate death metal I have heard in years. This should be counted among Scream Bloody Gore and Blessed Are The Sick and Altars Of Madness as a classic of the genre. It is truly that good. I like the fact that there are some unashamed classic thrash riffs too, most obviously on In Darkness You Feel No Regrets, the closing track. Death metal appears to still have some life left in it. Dammit, Pettersson, do us all a favour and fuck Wombbath off and do Heads For The Dead full time, mate. We will love you for it.

A jolly good romp through everything that I find fun about metal. Played adroitly, with passion and more importantly, you can tell that these guys are having fun! There’s a simple kind of joy in performance that shines through this record, even though it’s heavier than a dead star’s core decaying to neutronium.

The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System has seriously injured his neck from headbanging so hard to this record. I am old enough to know better and tomorrow’s going to be a right bastard. Also, Igor the Evil One is now traumatised from Dark Juan spasmodically jerking around the drawing room at Dark Juan Towers (it doesn’t take much) and is busily trying to eat my feet. Heads For The Dead are awarded 9/10 for the best pure death metal record I have heard in the past five years. Get off my feet, you little BASTARD!

TRACKLIST

Serpent’s Curse (Surprisingly restrained titling for a death metal band!)
Head For The Dead (Still ok so far…)
Deep Below (three songs in and they are still being sensible…)
Post Mortem Suffering (And we’re off! Death metal nonsense lives!)
The Awakening (Yes, I don’t like this part of the day.)
Death Calls (It is doing after the bottle of excellent port I have enjoyed this evening.)
Of Wrath And Vengeance (And looking after his brother with furious anger in case he is struck down?)
Gatecreeper (Into The Great Beyond) (I don’t even know if I can do this grammatically correctly with parentheses! But fuck it all, I’m Dark fucking Juan and punctuation is my bitch.)
Return To The Fathomless Darkness (Now, as a fathom is a unit of measurement of water depth, are they repeating a visit somewhere in some kind of small submersible? Without lights?)
In Darkness You Feel No Regrets (Oooooh yes. On many a teenage date of an evening back in Radcliffe, this could have been the motto of them. Even if some of them were quite regrettable, if enjoyable at the time.)

https://headsforthedead.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/headsforthedead/

This review is the property of Dark Juan and Metal Gods TV. It is strictly prohibited to copy any part of this review, unless you have all of the parties’ permission, or are the band/record label/PR company in question. Failure to adhere to these instructions will be considered as Plagiarism and you will be reported to the appropriate authorities.

---