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Before moving to the USA and into their much more familiar black metal career, INQUISITION originated in Cali, Colombia and began as a thrash metal band in the style of Sadus and Kreator in terms of songwriting and deliver. While the band has had its biggest known albums in the new millennium they actually started all the way back in 1988 and was founded by Dagon (vocals / guitars). On these early albums John Santa performed the percussion parts and from this very first EP release ANXIOUS DEATH and throughout the band’s entire career beginning on this early release there has never been a separate bassist with Dagon handling all guitar and bass duties.
INQUISITION had a black metal lo-fi attitude right from the beginning and it’s apparent by listening to their first offering and with the black and red hellish album cover art and Satanic themes that they were a little more in tune with early Celtic Frost, Slayer and Sepultura than the contemporary world of early 90s thrash. In addition to the demonic distortion on the guitar sound, there is also periods of keyboards that build dark and depressive atmospheric dread only to be broken by pummeling thrash metal guitar riffs and hyperactive drum abuse. Like many of the more uncompromising thrash bands of the era Dagon incorporates those little high pitched squeals on guitar as he engaged in the old school thrash metal style that fits in perfectly with the world of Kreator type bands.
This short but sweet 20 minute and 8 second EP contains three tracks that play thrash but scream black metal. Dagon’s vocal delivery is much more akin to 90s black metal shrieks more than anything intelligible in the popular thrash world but the guitar riffs and drumming are very much still on full thrash mode, however he stays just a pubic hair inside the the boundaries of the thrash metal genre for the music to fully be described as a true hybrid of the two styles. The result of this is one of those rare occasions of a blackened thrash metal experience. As you might expect with a lo-fi early release from a then unsigned band, the production and sound quality are very much in the demo release mode and as raw and lo-fi as you can get without being horrible. The music however is some very well played blackened thrash metal that develops the themes appropriately slight bordering on tech but also maintains a healthy atmospheric layer of metal attitude. This is a pretty decent debut although far from falling into the classification of essential.