{"id":92704,"date":"2022-01-28T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=92704"},"modified":"2022-02-15T15:49:03","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T15:49:03","slug":"album-review-vicious-knights-alteration-through-possession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-vicious-knights-alteration-through-possession\/","title":{"rendered":"VICIOUS KNIGHTS – Alteration Through Possession (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

VICIOUS KNIGHTS
Alteration Through Possession<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nDying Victims Productions (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Immediately drawn in by the cover art, I descend into the basement of this record and find myself intrigued by Greek metal band Vicious Knights \u2013 a leather-clad trio of Harvester (vocals \/ guitar), Panos (bass) and Liakos (drums) that has been in circulation since 2016.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t familiar with the previous demo and EP the band put out, but again I couldn\u2019t overlook the cover art of this. Thankfully the music is decent too.<\/p>\n

I guess it helps not knowing what to expect, and in my head I had all sorts of assumptions from a Mercyful Fate-style to standard heavy metal. But I was pleasantly surprised by what is essentially a black thrash attack.<\/p>\n

This is a very aggressive, sniping record that pretty much harkens back to the halcyon days of 80s, spiky thrash \u2013 think Kreator, Destruction metal on a Teutonic level, while also combing the depths of the underground South American scene.<\/p>\n

Opener \u2018From Nothingness (To A Slave Of Darkness)\u2019 is straight up hostile, dehydrated thrash; speeding axe used with barbaric bass and wild, punked up percussion. You\u2019ve heard it so many times before, and yet when executed correctly those electric shocks still frazzle and fry the ears.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sleep With The Ghouls\u2019 is hyper punk melody married to German cold steel frenzy, while \u2018Swing From The Grave\u2019 is sped up New Wave Of British Heavy Metal with blackened nuances, and \u2018It Was In My House\u2019 is utterly toxic in its thrashing hostility.<\/p>\n

The band rarely deviates from its plan, but there is an eerie atmosphere created, helped of course by that cover art. But whether it\u2019s the rampant gallop of \u2018The Boneghoul King (The Miserly)\u2019 or the explosive \u2018Vicious Knights\u2019, the patterns are similar yet lethal enough to exorcise even the most persistent of demonic spirits.<\/p>\n

These guys have firmly latched onto me and I\u2019m all the better for it. Alteration Through Possession<\/em> is a menacing and marauding opus that I tempt you to try.<\/p>\n

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

VICIOUS KNIGHTSAlteration Through Possession Dying Victims Productions (2022)Rating: 8\/10 Immediately drawn in by the cover art, I descend into the basement of this record and find myself intrigued by Greek metal band Vicious Knights \u2013 a leather-clad trio of Harvester (vocals \/ guitar), Panos (bass) and Liakos (drums) that has been in circulation since 2016. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4745],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-vicious-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92704","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=92704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92706,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92704\/revisions\/92706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}