Infernäl Mäjesty - None Shall Defy (1987)^{Release ID: 4013}

Infernal Majesty were unknown to me until I read several praise-filled reviews on various websites. I'm extremely glad I checked it out as this release is pure 80s thrash metal gold that's right up there with the very best. Slayer is an obvious influence, but these crazy Canadians (I'm starting to think all Canadians are crazy with Devin Townsend and Voivod also amongst them) certainly add their own touches all the way through.

First and foremost, None Shall Defy is filled to the brim with incredible energy and brilliant shredding riffs. But don't expect one dimensional, chaotic thrash that puts aggression and pure speed above song writing. These guys created memorable tunes and utilized heaps of variety in velocity. While the leads are not always great (one of the only negatives I can come up with), just about every riff gets me banging my head and raising the devil horns in appreciation. The vocalist spits out lyrics with violent intent and the drumming is interesting and technically proficient throughout.

The album is also thoughtfully put together, with 4 awesome longer tracks neatly spread out and separated by a couple of shorter, brutal tracks and a couple of nice atmospheric pieces to boot. None Shall Defy is an amazing thrash metal album that everyone into this style of music simply must own, particularly if bands like Slayer and Sadus are your thing. Highlights for me are Overlord, Night of the Living Dead and None Shall Defy, but the whole album is consistently excellent.

Canadians Infernäl Mäjesty operate in the zone of thrash metal that is rabid and putrid without necessarily dropping into blackened territory.  Their debut album is a pretty fucking intense experience, even for a hardened thrash metal veteran like me.  It is reminiscent of Possessed in terms of the death metal like intensity it generates, but also Slayer as a reference point for how true the thrash credentials are at the same time.

The album suffers an oddity in terms of structure early on with an instrumental track immediately after the opening song.  This loses a lot of momentum from the album in all honesty and despite the big build up that goes on during track 3, Night of the Living Dead puts things back on course more from an atmosphere perspective as opposed to reasserting the intensity levels immediately.  This is a strange choice of running order - even though it is obvious to see the link with the instrumental as an intro to the horror themed track mentioned above - and one that overall I do not think the record recovers from overall.  The feeling of things being a little disjointed thereafter is not entirely shook off at any point, despite the obvious distraction of the thunderous racket that occupies most of the album.

This does not make None Shall Defy a bad album by any means.  It is clearly made by a group of young people with all the morbid fascinations of horror, comics and serial killers that you would perhaps expect from the stereotype of thrash metal bands at the time.  These dark curiosities transpose well into song writing content and provide the necessary dank sound to the frantic tempos as a reminder that whatever we are racing through there is something vile not too far away, permeating the air with its corrosive odour.

At times it does feel like a much slower version of Slayer as opposed to others where they seem to match the mad thrashing intensity of the aforementioned stars of the genre.  Vocalist Chris Bailey does remind me of Tom Araya a lot, and the looping sonics of Steve Terror (yep, I know!) and Kenny Hallman are certainly not a football field away from Hanneman and King.  I don't think drummer Rick Nemes quite matches Lombardo in the skill stakes but he still does a great job of bashing his way through the record.

Terrible artwork aside, None Shall Defy is a great old-school thrash metal record that is probably criminally overlooked by most fans of the genre.