{"id":104127,"date":"2024-10-18T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T23:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=104127"},"modified":"2024-10-25T09:53:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T08:53:15","slug":"album-review-feral-to-usurp-the-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-feral-to-usurp-the-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"FERAL – To Usurp The Thrones (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

FERAL
To Usurp The Thrones<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nTranscending Obscurity (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Album number four from Sweden\u2019s Feral offers more of that HM-2 consistency we\u2019ve come to expect. Since the band\u2019s 2011 debut full-length Dragged To The Altar<\/em>, the combo has served up lashings of buzzsaw metal that takes influence from the masters of the field: Carnage, Grave and Dismember.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing fancy going on here, and nor particularly macabre, just good old catchy butchery. At its worst you could argue that the familiarity means this album could easily become a chore, but Feral is adept at creating colossal melodies and gargantuan grooves which strike akin to great whips.<\/p>\n

When I first heard \u2018Stripped Of Flesh\u2019 several months ago I was astounded at the sheer brutality the track offered, a bestial thrashing buzzsaw cacophony slipping into classic Entombed aided by the rowdy vocal chops of David Nilsson. \u2018Bound To The Dead\u2019 follows suit, a raging behemoth grinding ravenously with its lethal axe and bass work.<\/p>\n

A lot of the material here is aggressive and delivered with frothing pace as the drums of Roger Markstr\u00f6m punch through the gnashing framework, particularly on opening cut \u2018To Drain The World Of Light\u2019. At their heaviest, and possibly doomiest, Feral craft the monstrous riffage which opens \u2018Vile Malediction\u2019, a personal favourite that maintains the mid-tempo mood yet streaked with melodic soloing.<\/p>\n

Another chugging monstrosity is \u2018Phantoms Of Antiquity\u2019, as again the drums pound with measured ferocity. But of the 11 tracks on display there\u2019s not a rotten egg in sight. The rather brief \u2018Soaked In Blood\u2019 is a mid-90s groove machine that\u2019s simple, direct and burly, while \u2018Deformed Mentality\u2019 is a wild flailing heap of thrashing death punctuated by crazed solos.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get treated to a bit of everything here as Feral sits comfortably in that recognisable Swedish style and yet still they manage to sever limbs with those buzzing torrents. Good on them.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FERALTo Usurp The Thrones Transcending Obscurity (2024)Rating: 8\/10 Album number four from Sweden\u2019s Feral offers more of that HM-2 consistency we\u2019ve come to expect. Since the band\u2019s 2011 debut full-length Dragged To The Altar, the combo has served up lashings of buzzsaw metal that takes influence from the masters of the field: Carnage, Grave and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-feral-sweden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104128,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104127\/revisions\/104128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}