Review by Daniel for Bathory - Octagon (1995)

OK, so I'm sure there will be a few people who will question my having awarded the universally-panned eighth full-length from Swedish black/Viking metal godfathers Bathory a decent score & I would have sat in that camp when I first heard it at the time of release too but it's honestly nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. Sure, the production has intentionally been kept as raw as fuck & Quorthon's vocals aren't gonna win any awards but surely we were all used to his vocal deficiencies by that stage & the song-writing isn't half bad most of the time, if never threatening to deviate from the classic underground thrash metal sound.

Quorthon said at the time that Bathory had backed themselves into a creative corner after 1991's "Twilight of the Gods" by releasing ever more epic albums so he was looking for the next step in terms of style. He ended up releasing a grunge solo album in 1994 so as to tick off a bucket-list goal he'd always had & it felt great to be able to simply create something he'd wanted to for a long time without worrying about what his fan base thought. Some of his fans had been telling him that they missed his older, rawer Bathory material so he decided to make a raw, DIY-style thrash record for fun with 1994's "Requiem" being the result. He enjoyed the process so much that he followed it up with "Octagon" around six months later & both were brutally criticized by fans & critics. I agree that "Requiem" was subpar but "Octagon" is a little better in my opinion, if being noticeably simple in its construction. Sure, there are a few duds to be found here (see "Century", "War Supply" & "Judgement of Posterity") but there are also some very solid inclusions like "Sociopath" & "Schizianity" & the wins comfortably outweigh the losses. I even quite like the fairly faithful rendition of KISS's "Deuce" so I guess it's fair to say that "Octagon" is a guilty pleasure for me these days. It's strange how time can sometimes change your perceptions so much, isn't it? I can do without the sections that look to tackle the classic Anthrax sound though as they fail dismally.

For fans of Kreator, Slayer & Celtic Frost.