Review Summary: The blades are drawn, neck stiffness is ready.
Blades Drawn might be one of the most gratifying unintentional musical discoveries i've come upon in recent memories. The band I was listening to, whilst equally cathartic, ultimately did not hold the same seething rage nor the same thick-cut slab bacon levels of MEATINESS that these blackened snarls or punishing riffs would bring forth. It was Fallujah's "Venom Upon the Blade"-the search result that popped afterwards was the same name by Age of Panic. No more lush arpeggio's, no more sense of comfort or ethereal melody. Comfort is the
antithesis of what this EP desires. Instead take the gnarliest low end of modern day Knocked Loose and pair it with a greater propensity towards witchy snarls and even more sufficiently bleak guitar riffs. It is to say that this record is as dismal as a child's funeral procession while retaining an anger greater than your typical Alabama inbred after seeing a new Budweiser can. Heavy indeed. Does this mean this is a rather one note EP? Undoubtedly, but what it sates, whether it be the -almost- Zao-like intro in the aforementioned "Venom Upon the Blade" or the freakish marriage of old school tremolos and punchy chugs in "Act of Treachery", is a primal urge to smash and punch and kick and kill all that would dare enter your vicinity. So don your best corpse paint and give your arms a good stretch, for the time to windmill to the greatest band this side of blackened hardcore is upon you.
