Formed in 2016, Detroit death-thrashers Plague Years follow up 2020’s highly impressive full length debut album Circle of Darkness with rampaging four tracker All Will Suffer (MNRK Heavy).

Owing much to the likes of Kreator, Sepultura and Death, Plague Years deliver a brutally efficient sub-twenty minute assault on the senses. Vocalist Tim Engelhardt combines hardcore vocals with low end death grunts and higher pitched screams, guitarist Eric Lauder arms each song with a salvo of muscular riffs while bassist Rian Staber and drummer Mike Jurysta bolster the attack with some seriously impressive chops.

After an intro which sounds like being sat next to someone wearing cheap headphones, opening track ‘Make You Mortal’ bursts into life with a barrage of pounding kick-drums. Settling into a more rhythmic groove the song finally unleashes its full potential with a Slayer style crescendo and hardcore vocals from Engelhardt, Lauder’s adept solos combining dive-bombing whammy action with melodic Middle Eastern atmosphere.  

‘Suffer’ uses a stomping, menacing riff as a launch pad into another punishing tirade of abuse, riffs unashamedly ripped straight from the Slayer and Dark Angel camps while Engelhardt mixes up his vocal styles to great effect. The Warbringer rhythms of ‘Reality Of Filth’ blast any remaining cobwebs out of your recently destroyed cranial cavity before ‘Cursed’ ends the EP with a devastating combination of speed, groove and slow death, the increasingly agitated Engelhardt sounding like he’s seconds away from spewing his vital organs all over the studio floor.

A punchy, bloody production and some classic looking artwork add to a deeply unsavoury and portentous atmosphere, the only noticeable downside to All Will Suffer being that it finishes before it has a chance to completely rip your face off. Still, that’s why the “repeat” button was invented.

Buy the EP here: https://laylo.com/plagueyears/CSG8n

8 / 10

GARY ALCOCK