Kev Rowland
Pest are proud of what they do, which according to their website is Swedish black metal ‘played in the old vein, no females or keyboards involved’. The duo have been around since 1997 and comprise Equimanthorn (bass, guitars) and Necro (drums, guitars, vocals), and I certainly understand their comment as this is very much black metal as it used to be. In fact, viewed against what we currently perceive to be black metal, this actually has at least as much in common with NWOBHM. It is almost as if this is an album that has been rediscovered and while the production is clean it does remind me in many ways of early Darkthrone, with some elements of Celtic Frost and early Venom thrown in for good measure.
There is little of the high pitched ultra fast guitar picking or blast beats, and overall there just isn’t the menace that tends to come across these days as it is far less intense and far more naïve. Because of that it almost has a novelty value, as it is the best part of 30 years out of time, but it is actually a far better album than that. They do mix it up and “Holocaust” shows that they can go a lot heavier and up to date when they wish to, just that they often don’t want to do that.
All in all this is one of those BM albums that I have found the more I have played it the more I got out of it and it definitely has something going for it. It has been five years since the last album and I for one hope that the next one doesn’t take nearly as long.