By Jim Rowland
South America has been a hotbed for extreme metal for many years now, and many of those bands have hailed from Chile. Santiago, Chile is just where blackened thrash merchants Hellish hail from, and they today unleash their third full length album in the shape of ‘The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents’.
Following the 2020 departure of longtime vocalist/bassist Necromancer, last year Hellish introduced Christopher Aravena as his replacement on the well-received ‘The Vermis Mysteriis’ EP, and this album is the first full length to feature him on bass/vocals.
A good album doesn’t have to be a long one (how long was ‘Reign In Blood’?), and indeed the eight tracks that make ‘The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents’ up clock in at an economic 33 minutes, but Hellish manage to cram a whole lot into those minutes. Opener ‘The Ancient Entity of the Darkest Light’, along with ‘Black Stones’, ‘Goddess Death’, ‘Nocturnal Trudge’, ‘Secrets of the Sands’ and ‘Dreamlike Fears’ are all fast, furious and evil sounding thrash belters that owe more to the influence of the extreme metal pioneers of Germany and Scandinavia than any of their American counterparts.
Whilst all breakneck speed belters, each one is crammed full of inventive, interesting twists and turns that keep your attention and elevate Hellish above your general run of the mill black thrash merchants. The guitar work is top notch, and whilst this is very heavy stuff, there’s plenty of melody in the guitar parts. New boy Aravena delivers a great vocal performance as well, injecting the album with a suitably dark, dirty, black and evil vocal style and even a few Tom G Warrior style death grunts thrown in for good measure.
‘Violent, Bloody & Cold’ takes the foot off the accelerator for the most part, delivering a slower, swinging big riffing track before putting the foot down to the floor again for the pummelling ending, whilst the album closes in spectacular fashion with the instrumental title track having a distinct neo-classical feel in the guitar department, and really showcases the abundant talent both guitarists in this band have.
‘The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents’ is a pretty perfect blend of black and old school hardened thrash metal, played with power, precision, skill and invention, and well worth checking out for any blackened thrash fan.
This is a split release, with the CD released by Unspeakable Axe Records, and vinyl edition being handled by Dying Victims Productions with the regular edition on black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code and a special edition on golden vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch.
- ‘The Dance of the Four Elemental Serpents’ is released today (Friday 16 December).
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