Review Summary: The music was perfectly described by the sticker, bit it didn't mention that the album was incredibly repetitive and unoriginal.
Serpent Obscene strikes for the third time with the most violent attack to date. Uncompromising and merciless death/thrash metal liberated from all modern influences building on speed and pitiless savagery.
Tasty words right? That is the message of a sticker that I found on my Serpent Obscene album. Death/thrash can either mean disaster or success. A successful death/thrash band would be a band like the Swedish
The Crown or the Finnish bands like
Deathchain or
De Lirium's Order. But Serpent Obscene could be labelled as a band of disaster, but it depends on how you look at it. Serpent Obscene was a Swedish death/thrash band and they broke up with three full-length albums in their baggage. Their music was very influenced by bands like early Kreator (especially in their last album) and of course death metal. But Serpent Obscene doesn't sound like today’s death/thrashers. You can either call their music as ''extreme retro thrash'' or ''primitive death/thrash''. The band has tons of thrash material but the death influences are hardly noticeable.
The music was perfectly described by the sticker, bit it didn't mention that the album was incredibly repetitive and unoriginal. Chaos Reign Supreme was their last effort. The reason whay they broke up was because that one of the band members decided to quit. Chaos actually reigns in this album, the guitars are puking hard riffs and shredds all over the place, the drums are pounding endlessly and the vocals are very intense. But there is one big flaw, the drums. There are probably only two drum patterns that the drummer uses, blast-beats and a drum pattern which is very familiar to blast-beats, except that this particular pattern is slightly slower. The crew deliver great music but because of one damn drum pattern everything seems so repetitive and annoying.
There is only one good thing about Chaos Reign Supreme and that is the passion and devotion that the guys show in their music. Everything is fuelled by an unstoppable anger and ferocity, every track is intense, extremely vicious and outright extreme. But then the word repetitive comes in and attacks like rusty dagger that thrusts its way in your back. Most tracks sounds almost identical to each other, there are probably just one slow moment and three intense moments in one song. Like this: Fast, Fast, Somewhat slower and Fast. ''Crescendo Of Violence'' is probably the only track that has a great song structure, catchy riffs and good mix of different drum patterns. The vocals and the lyrics are nothing to commend as well. Every scream sounds so bad (except the ones in Crescendo Of Violence). And the lyrics, the incredibly thought-out lyrics. War, death, suffering, violence and disaster... And one more thing, the band was labelled as a death/thrash band. Death metal is known for having loads of double bass drumming; the weird thing is that the drummer doesn't use this rattling mayhem drumming. Only that could've lowered the level of boredom and repetitiveness.
What a waste of energy, this album could've been so much better if it just had a tad more variety. Simple things like tempo changes and different drum patterns would've been enough to make this album to sound good but no. This is not an album that many metal fans will enjoy. There will be people who will praise this album, like the fans of the band. But for whose whom are ''outsiders'' towards this band will probably have difficulties to get used to this album. Final advice: Proceed with caution.
Positives
+ Very vicious and hard-hitting music
+ Some destructive riffs and solos
Negatives
- The only thing that ruins this album is the repetitive drum patterns
Recommended Tracks
-- Crescendo Of Violence
-- Sinister Faces
Final rating: 2/5
