Sounding like the tagline to an eighties slasher movie, Never Ending Night Of Terror (Pulverised Records) is the fourth full-length studio release for US/European Death Metal gorehounds Heads For The Dead. This time out, the band draw inspiration from directors such as David Cronenberg and Stuart Gordon (among many others), focusing on their favourite slasher/revenge films. However, instead of simply copying down movie plots, the band’s chief lyricist/frontman Ralf Hauber infuses the stories with original ideas.
Opening with a sample from Lucio Fulci‘s City Of The Living Dead, opening cut “The Vastness Of Time” kicks off with maximum brutality, becoming more intense by the moment until it settles into a strong groove backed with atmospheric keys. Hauber’s vocals suit the music perfectly, his Germanic slippery low end mucus-filled gutturals and occasional high pitched screams abetted by some frantic guitar work from Swedish axeman/bassist/keyboardist Jonny Pettersson and his American accomplice, Matt Moliti.
The moody guitar and keyboard intro of “Death Mask” explodes with a surging, feral energy supported by a wickedly sharp guitar solo and a melodic refrain that sounds like it could have come from any Italian horror film from the eighties. “Phantasmagoria” follows, its sludgy crawl dripping with eighties video menace while the bludgeoning one and a half minutes of “In Disgust We Trust” are bookended with samples from the trailer to Roman Polanski‘s Repulsion. At close to seven minutes, the title track is the longest cut on the album, an off-kilter, darkly atmospheric colossus featuring quality work from recently recruited US drummer Evan Daniele, and a climactic melody which hints at 1981 Egyptian themed horror flick Dawn Of The Mummy.
Attacking with viciously jagged riffs, “Give Me Life” takes the time to sample the trailer to Stuart Gordon‘s HP Lovecraft’s Re-Animator while “The Harvester” and the crushing mid-paced groove of “The Shape Of Light Bleeds Black” deliver yet further visceral assaults on the senses. “To The Very Last” borrows from the trailer to George A Romero‘s zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead while adding some simply ferocious flesh-eating blasts before the album climaxes with the classy “Witchkrieg.” The band’s homage to Italian act Goblin, the song wears its influence proudly on its bloodstained sleeve as it unashamedly lifts the main theme to 1977’s Dario Argento masterpiece, Suspiria.
A far cry from Mortician style cut and paste sampling followed by a battery of inane and sloppy Death Metal rantings, Heads For The Dead owe more to the likes of Italian act Fulci with their love of eighties shlock. Standing with one rotting foot in the old school, and the other in more modern territory, Never Ending Night Of Terror is not only faster than a horde of zombies but twice as relentless.
Buy the album here:
https://pulverised.bandcamp.com/album/never-ending-night-of-terror
8 / 10
GARY ALCOCK
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