Review by Rexorcist for Deströyer 666 - Unchain the Wolves (1997)

If there's one thing I want to see in an album, it's a strong sense of art.  On their debut album, Destroyer 666 seemed to utilize that a lot more than a lot of other thrash bands did with their debuts.  After having finished a Metal Academy Thrash Albums Challenge, comparing them to Unchain the Wolves was pretty easy.  The band is really trying to exceed their artistic limits here.  Slow-paced melodies and tempos like the ones present on Genesis to Genocide and Tyranny are so carefully handled for their long runtimes due to a strong sense of epic atmospheres.  And then you have rocket-speed hitters like Australian and Anti-Christ which makes a point of emulating the blackened thrash sound of early Bathory but with the band's own presence, and then moments that can go pure black and assault your ears and brain like Six Curses from a Spiritual Wasteland.  Now the melodies aren't always the best, but they're operable and they're varied enough in each song to ensure than nothing gets tiring.  Even a shorter song can go to three different places before it reaches the halfway point and still feel like its own song.  However, with the sharing of standard thrash and black tempos, there's also an are of familiarity present through the album.  These are most present in Side B, and they get a little tiring by that time.  Otherwise, the album is pretty well done.  These guys seem to have an authantic hatred for organized religion, and that anger drives both their creative side and the ferocious mood of the album.

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