Legion Of The Damned
Ravenous Plague

[colored_box color=”grey”]Rating: 8
Label: Napalm Records
Website: Link
Author: Aggelos “Redneck” Katsouras[/colored_box]

First of all, for the ones not familiar with the band so far, imagine a thrashing dynamite with death metal approach and force on the performance and with a vitriolic and also acidic throat spitting every lyric. Maurice Swinkels is the main responsible for making Legion Of The Damned sounding a little more death metal to some thrashers, but the band’s initial (and current I guess) goal was to play another style, compared to their old band Occult (that’s why they have re-released the old Occult album of 2003 ‘’Elegy Of The Weak’’ under the name ‘’Feel The Blade’’ with Legion’s logo on it, in 2008). The goal is succeeded once again, as it always does since the superb debut ‘’Malevolent Rapture’’ in 2005. That’s why together with Suicidal Angels, Legion Of The Damned is the best thrash band out there the last decade, because they play thrash metal the way it should sound.

The biggest achievement is that they’ve given thrash metal the aggression that was lacking for many years. Riffs here, riffs there, riffs simply everywhere, with the rhythm section following in marching mode and Swinkels pushing his throat to the limit in each album to make the result even deadlier. Once again, you are blown and bludgeoned from the first second with the entering of ‘’Howling For Armageddon’’ (after a small intro), the familiar Legion-riffing storm is there from the very beginning, leaving no room for doubt if ‘’Ravenous Plague’’ is a very good album that is worth the listening. If you have doubts after this, you will get punished with tracks like ‘’Black Baron’’, ‘’Doom Priest’’ and ‘’Bury Me In A Nameless Grave’’, all of them capable enough to change your opinion soon enough and make you once again inevitably admit that you’re dealing with pure professionals which play this music first for theirselves.

You will get yourself to put the album in repeat mode after the final fatality with the duo of ‘’Armalite Assassin’’ and ‘’Strike Of The Apocalypse’’ and in the end you will see that it was wise enough for the band to keep the album at forty five minutes playing time. Strangely enough, ‘’Ravenous Plague’’ is the longest playing album of the band (counting out the release of ‘’Feel The Blade’’ with the bonus tracks of course) and it doesn’t seem to tire the listener, instead it seems to find room for more aggression and some other elements that keep Legion in a high level, such as some more heavy and mid tempo parts here and there, exactly where needed to make the result not sound monotonous. Of course, veterans as they clearly are, they know very well what to do and how to produce their music after all these years.

In conclusion, of course you will get satisfied once more with a new Legion Of The Damned album and of course they can proudly claim they did a very good album. To their older fans, it may seem that they’ve lost something of their first two albums’ aggression, but even if this is a little real, it’s given its place to more mature approach in their music (even to those believing that thrashing can’t have any maturity) and more attractive final taste. With another strong release from the Dutchmen and with the new Suicidal Angels album soon to hit the stores, I’d like to hope that 2014 could be a great thrash year, the fans of the genre need it, but believe me, the genre needs it much more. Let’s also hope that there will be other bands out there that will catch the old essence of this music and will evolve it in such a way, that it can remain great as in the good old days.