Review by Sonny for Bolt Thrower - The IVth Crusade (1992)

Bolt Thrower were probably the very first death metal band I got into. During the very early 1990s I had pretty much left the metal world behind, but I often still listened to good old John Peel's (RIP) late night radio show (usually on my drive home from work after a 2-10 shift) and Bolt Thrower were a band he championed (along with Carcass and Napalm Death), so they often featured on his show. To be honest they really stood out to my ears because, at this time, I wasn't even remotely familiar with bands this brutal-sounding, Reign In Blood being the most brutal record I had heard up to then, so this was a whole new level of aggression and brutality which really made an impression. Admittedly I didn't seek out their records or anything at this point, as I said I wasn't really listening to metal a this point in my life, but the name Bolt Thrower stuck in my head along with the impression of something so unbelievably brutal-sounding that it was hard to believe they dared play it on the radio.

Now all these many years later I have got myself much more familar with the band and their material and whilst it is true that they were never a band that have tried to push the envelope, they managed to maintain an impressive level of consistency over their almost thirty year career and never produced anything other than high quality, no frills death metal. The IVth Crusade was their fourth full-length and this time around they turned their conflict-obsessed attentions towards the Fourth Crusade, which was called by Pope Innocent III in the early thirteenth century and was intended to overthrow the Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate before retaking Jerusalem, but which ended up with Constantinople being sacked by the Western Catholic Church and deepening the schism between Eastern and Western Catholic Empires, hence the lyric of the title track, "Vanquished in the name of your god, One of the same to whom we once prayed".

Bloodstained lyricism apart, Bolt Thrower have a distinct sound, with a depth and bassiness that doesn't descend into the realm of the cavernous, but retains a solidity and heft that bludgeons like a sledgehammer to the temple. No, they don't paint outside the lines, but they pack such a punch with their tight riffing and bone-crushing rhythms that the appeal of their sound is impossible to withstand for any fan of extreme metal. Karl Willetts vocal delivery is all growling menace and barely-contained violence that roars it's blood-drenched words of human destruction, hurling them into the listeners face like an accusation of complicity. He is also one of the very few extreme metal vocalists that I can hear virtually every word he utters. The lead guitar work can best be described as functional with the Midlanders never going in for overt showiness, but letting the driving rhythms and muscular riffing define their sound with the soloing only acting as muted decoration rather than their raison d'être. In this way their music has an almost military functionality and lethality which, given their aesthetic, I wouldn't be surprised if it was completely by design.

By the time of The IVth Crusade all traces of their earlier grind sound had been left behind and the album is pure and unfiltered death metal from start to finish. Although my personal favourite BT album is Realm of Chaos, which marks the ideal balance between death metal and their earlier grind affiliation, this isn't really very far behind in my affections. Despite it's monstrous solidity the riffs are often quite melodic, sticking in the memory pretty well and are absolutely guaranteed to get the old noggin' nodding. The band often get painted with the accusation of being "samey" and while it is true that they have never felt the need to experiment with their sound, there is sufficient variation in tempo to maintain interest over the length of an album. All in all, if you want an album of unashamed death metal with solid songwriting performed to the highest level then you could do much worse than break open a copy of The IVth Crusade.