(Napalm Records)
Total Running Time:38:08
LEGION OF THE DAMNED is a Thrash/Death Metal band from the Netherlands, that has actually existed in two different incarnations. The band was originally formed in 1992 under the name OCCULT, and had a female vocalist. They broke up in 2006, and quickly reformed under the name “Legion Of The Damned”, with a new singer.
Few bands capture the essence of a riff-driven thrash sound with sheer death-like anger so as the Dutch masters LEGION OF THE DAMNED did. They successfully managed to make a name for themselves since they were playing beautiful Black/Thrash as Occult.
“Slaves Of The Shadow Realm” comes after a five year release gap, a period of studio inactivity unheard for LEGION OF THE DAMNED. The sound of this album is actually the first big problem I had with it. While it retains the dark Thrash sound of the previous album, it feels less like a continuation of that and more like a rehash. That in turn, causes the album to feel less interesting as a result.
Another problem I want to mention briefly, is the fact that a lot of those songs sound the same, which was actually a problem that I had with ‘’Ravenous Plague’’. It makes these songs very hard to distinguish from one another, and the lack of interesting riffs or solos that stick out, really hurts the album. The same guitar tone can be heard throughout the entire album and all the songs are so similar that they blur together, even after three or four times listening to this album.
Though this is a tried and tested formula for LEGION OF THE DAMNED, it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table…
Rating: 6/10
Nikos Manousis
