Review by Dan Perks
Someone once told me an album is only as good as the booze you drink while listening to it. While this statement is utterly ridiculous I think I’ve found the perfect drinking accompaniment to Winds of Plague’s fourth full length release Resistance. Dead Crow beer is a mix of bourbon and beer, tasty and dangerously moreish. Resistance is the audio equivalent of Dead Crow: a mix of potent ingredients, moreish and utterly mind destroying in large volumes.
The album sets the scene with ‘Open The Gates’, a short album opener that begins like the theme from a monster’s ball. Imagine ghouls and goblins dancing round a majestic hall until the devil himself turns up drunk and gate-crashes the party. To signify the arrival of said gate-crasher, the song drops into a pummelling groove that pulls you into the anthemic line “Open the gates of Hell”. You could quite easily imagine the gates of the underworld parting and a mosh-pit of demons and the damned arriving at the previously formal affair.
For the next 30 minutes there is no let-up in the level of brutality purveyed by Wind of Plague. There are riffs a plenty throughout songs like ‘Sewer Mouth’ and ‘One Foot In The Grave’. Some have an uptempo hardcore feel while some have a sweeping death metal feel. Fusing the two are pounding beatdowns and energetic tempo changes. And songs like ‘United In Hatred’ are begging for you to scream along and I imagine live, it would be a huge crowd favourite.
The thing I love about this album is Winds of Plague haven’t tried to reinvent the hammer. It’s heavy and in your face without being overcomplicated or gimmick-laden. They have taken two solid elements of hardcore and death metal and fermented them perfectly. The result is a sledgehammer of an album that pulls you in, crushes your brain and then leaves you feeling like you’re at the end of a four day binge. So buy some Dead Crow, buy this album, turn it up, have a drink and go nuts.
8 out of 10
Track listing:
- Open The Gates
- Say Hello To The Undertaker
- Sewer Mouth
- Left For Dead
- One Foot In The Grave
- Time To Reap
- United Through Hatred
- Good Ol Fashioned Bloodbath
- No Man Is My Master
- Snake Eyes
