Review by Sonny for Sadistik Exekution - The Magus (1991)

This is the debut album from Aussie death-thrashers, Sadistik Exekution and although it was recorded in 1988 various issues plagued it's release and so it didn't actually see light of day until 1991. This is a great example of 1980's extreme metal, exhibiting raw aggression and an irrepressible enthusiasm and combining it with decent technical ability for some pretty brutal stuff considering it's year of recording. The production of course is for shit, but that only adds to the charm for me, increasing the underground appeal and ensuring it's adherents remain poseur-free! Anyway, if you can get past the production issues (and I've certainly heard plenty worse) then there is much to appreciate here and a big plus from the production is that it allows Dave Slave's terrific bass playing to rise to the surface and get the notice it deserves, as well as, intentionally or not, lending the whole thing a kind of war metal vibe. It also seems like there is a quite noticable difference in the recording quality of some of the tracks, suggesting at least a couple of different sessions were involved in getting the album down on tape.

In founder and singer Rok I think I have discovered one of my favourite extreme metal vocalists. His savage growl is pitched just perfectly, somewhere between death metal growl and black metal shriek, and sounds fittingly menacing and evil and suits this material astonishingly well. The guitar riffs are another casualty of the piss-poor production, but the Kerry King-ish solos still cut through the mire like a sabre slash. The song-writing is pretty varied, the rules for extreme metal not being written in stone at this point and technically, underneath the murkiness of the production, they seem like a pretty proficient bunch with hints at early tech-death techniques, even employing some synth work for added atmosphere especially during the closing couple of tracks, the weirdly disturbing John Carpenter horror movie soundtrack-like ambient track Spirits Are Komming and the doomy I'll Kill Ya, You Bastard.

I may well be getting a bit carried away with this one and leaving myself open to accusations of being a tr00 kvlt, elitist arsehole, but if you are looking for some early technical deaththrash with proto-war metal leanings and some synthy weirdness - and who isn't - then I would heartily and unreservedly recommend this unto you (and you can call me what you want - I don't really give a shit!)