DEVIL'S POISON — Power of Darkness (Blasphemous Rumours) (review)

DEVIL'S POISON — Power of Darkness (Blasphemous Rumours) album cover

Album · 2022 · Speed Metal

3/5 · 2024-08-22
siLLy puPPy

One of the many extreme metal bands to emerge from South America in recent years, DEVIL’S POISON formed in 2015 in the far southern reaches of Chile in the city of Coyhaique. This band that consists of Black Goat Sodomizer (bass, vocals), Bestial Drinker (guitars, screams) and S. Conquerer (drums, screams) has adopted many newer band’s fascination with the first wave of black metal when the genre was in its infancy and still basically a hybrid of speed metal and thrash metal.

DEVIL’S POISON is yet another band to follow in these footsteps and looks more to early Slayer, Venom, Bathory, Black Uniforms, GISM and even crust punk pioneers like Discharge as the inspiring forces. In just less than 10 years this band has released a fair number o demos, EPs, splits and singles but has also released two full-length albums with this second one POWER OF DARKNESS (BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS) coming out as recently as 2022. On this sophomore unit, DEVIL’S POISON conjures up its best Venom inspired blackened speed metal taking you back to the early 80s with that same filthy grit and rawness that made those bands some of the scariest and most cutting edge of the era.

Remaining fairly faithful to the early blackened thrash / speed metal playbook, nothing on POWER OF DARKNESS will come off as unique or innovative in anyway considering this style was forged well over four decades ago and the world of black metal has not only matured but splintered to an unthinkable number of branches. This is no nonsense first wave black metal much in the vein of bands like the Japanese Sabbat who also opted early on to latch onto the first wave of black metal as its primary resource for its own career and then the legion of imitators has been incessant ever since.

POWER OF DARKNESS (BLASPHEMOUS RUMOURS) is a short running album at only 26 1/2 minutes but packs a powerful punch with a strong crusty infusion of lo-fi guitar riffs and pounding bass grooves. Lots of dirty guitar solos that showcases the DIY ethos that the pioneers of this sound demonstrated with nary a care for virtuosity and basically with the intent to create a bunch of angsty noise with heavy distortion and irreverent song titles and lyrics. Going for the international crowds, this band operates in the English language. Overall it’s a decent slice of retro proto black metal when the genre was still taking its baby steps into its own but also nothing to get overly excited about either.

Like many regions of the world that missed the original scene, this band probably fills that niche for live performances in a nation that didn’t have access to the original pioneers. The musicians are all decent and i love the screams. The music is authentically played and sounds as if it really was crafted so long ago but in the end of the day there are so many real first wavers to still discover that a modern version of Venom just doesn’t really get my juices flowing. A good and well performed album but not one i would call essentially by any means especially when Chile is on fire with modern day bands like Inana representing the nation in a modern day context.