DESTRÖYER 666 - Wildfire CD

New & sealed!

This album dropped early in the year and I knew it would be one of my favorite albums of the year pretty much instantly. These Aussie black thrashers have refined their sound to a fine point on Wildfire. More than any sub-genre can describe, this album is fucking metal!

Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister had only died 2 months ago when this was released, but I wouldn’t forgive you for mistaking this album as a tribute to the rock god himself. Deströyer 666 is bringing that thrashing rock and roll fury in spades here, sounding less like a second wave black metal band and more like a first wave black metal band at this point.

All that aside, it’s still the Deströyer 666 we all know and love. Buzzing black thrash riffs, venomous black metal shrieks, eerie and cold lead guitar moments leading to a uniquely dark and aggressive atmosphere. What sets it aside is the execution more than the sound, although there is definitely a noticeable shift in the sound as well. It seems as if they were trying to write some concert anthems here and I’d say they’ve succeeded.

There is definitely a Motörhead meets black metal vibe going on here. They aforementioned anthemic hard rock stylings meeting the cold, buzzsaw black metal of the band’s older records. There is a great sense of melody on some of the tracks, a nice contrast from the black thrash attack. One thing that really stood out to me was the incorporation of clean-ish gang vocals on some of the tracks. That and the addition of falsettos to highlight some of the more explosive moments on the tracks. The vocals have strong variation on Wildfire and it adds to that oldschool metal attitude.