The Hall of Judgement: Pestilence - Malleus Maleficarum

Daniel requested that this release be submitted into the Hall of Judgement.

Result: With a vote tally of YES 5 NO 0, Pestilence's "Malleus Maleficarum" album was added to The Horde on top of its existing position in The Pit.

This change added the Death Metal genre to the release.

Member comment: "While Pestilence's 1988 debut album 'Malleus Maleficarum' is generally regarded as a thrash metal record, I would argue that it’s a genuine death/thrash release because it maintains a level of ambiguity throughout the ten tracks included with many of the riffs sounding like they’d be equally at home on either side of the line of segregation. Pestilence often showcase an angularity that would seep its way into the death metal scene through heavy-weights like Death but also maintain the visceral thrash metal edge that the Teutonic thrash metal scene had built its reputation on. The other element worth mentioning in the death metal argument is the vocal delivery of legendary death metal figure Martin van Drunen which may not be the psychotic howl he’d build his career on at this point but is deathly enough to be significant in the argument for a dual tagging. Overall, I’d suggest that 'Malleus Maleficarum' takes the potent thrash metal of Sodom, Kreator & particularly 'Schizophrenia'-era Sepultura & combines it with the early US death metal of Possessed & Death for a best-of-both-worlds sound that ticks all of my boxes in emphatic fashion. As a result, I'd like to see 'Malleus Maleficarum' added to The Horde under the Death Metal (Conventional) subgenre on top of its existing position in The Pit."

NOTE: Only members of The Horde & The Pit could vote on this judgement.