Nightfly
You may not yet have heard of Berzerker Legion as they have only been active since 2016 and this, Obliterate The Weak, is their debut album. If you’ve had an interest in extreme metal at all though you’ll certainly have heard of many of the bands these guys either currently or previously played with in the past – Dark Funeral, Asphyx, Vader and Wombbath to name just a few. The list is endless, pretty much covering most of the gamut of extreme metal. No shortage of experience then.
Berzerker Legion despite the wide sub-genre experience stick to death metal, pretty much the old school variety with plenty of the melodic Swedish type thrown in. Speed is not the primary concern here, instead an emphasis on crushing riffs with groove and a good supply of melody serves them well on an album brimming with memorable songs that have you wanting to hit the repeat button, at least it would if I wasn’t listening on vinyl. It doesn’t get any better than the title track alternating between a slow crushing groove for the verse and a faster melodic death metal chorus. These guys seem to have a liking for Bolt Thrower too. There’s really no shortage of great music on offer here though with nothing coming across as weak or misplaced. Of course with this amount of experience the playing as expected is exceptionally good and the production is spot on for displaying the power of this band.
I know it’s still early in the year but I haven’t come across loads of great new death metal yet. This is by far my favourite so far. With these guys having so many other musical commitments I really hope this doesn’t turn out to be a one off as it’s a quality release and I’ll look forward to more from them in the future hopefully.