Infected - Dark Century (1989)^{Release ID: 20282}

A completely new one on me - I have never even heard of these Swiss death thrashers before, in fact they seem quite obscure even amongst those in the know and this is the very definition of an underground release. They were very short-lived, forming in '87 and splitting in '90 and Dark Century seems to be their only release of any kind. Now this seems to be a great shame as this is a great slab of metal, haunting those hinterlands between death and thrash where so many excellent late-80's releases dwelt. The riffs are energetic and enervating, the drumming is relentless and the bass is fairly pronounced in the manner of the modern Chilean thrash scene. The solos may not be the most invigorating I have ever heard, but they are fine as far as they go and vocalist Amos Gersmann has a pretty decent deathly growl. The production isn't the best, it must be said, but it gives it a cavernous murkiness that gives the album even more underground cred I guess.

I found this to be pretty enjoyable and am stumped as to why it isn't better known - although 1989 had some fucking phenomenal stuff coming out, this is still better than a lot of shit I've heard from the late eighties. Sometimes you've just got to be in the right place at the right time I suppose. Anyway if you have a particular love of early death thrash then I strongly recommend you wrap your ears around this bad-ass slab of red-hot metal goodness. Unfortunately it's not available on Spotify (or anywhere except some ancient rip on YouTube it seems).

4/5