Paganizer – On the Outskirts of Hades Review

Paganizer on the outskirts of hadesThe new EP from Sweden’s Paganizer is a searing trip through dizzying death metal riffs. Audacious and deliberate these four tracks hold the flames of wrath and will direct them straight to your speakers.  The effects of which will prepare your ears for the petty things the world has to offer.

Paganizer’s career spans almost twenty years. Starting in 1998 and never stopping, their diligence has given them the experience to carve one heavy fucker of an EP. Imbuing it with some kind of transcendental death energy. Titled On the Outskirts of Hades it features a carnal tone that’s both chunky and razor sharp.  Creating a dense atmosphere of necrotic affections waiting to rip your doubts about the living into strips of meaty ligatures. Four to be exact.

Given their eighteen years plus history as a band it’d be natural to think that they’d have adopted a gimmick to claim new fans and thankfully they haven’t. Those years have been put in to practice creating the refined determination this EP presents. Where each step towards the end marks an intense boost to the body clock, making for a riveting journey through thirteen and a half minutes of time.

On the Outskirts of Hades contains all the stuff that suburban nightmares are made of, and it’s execution belies a clever and evocative collection of cacophonous melodies.  Offering up a provocative musical dialogue to challenge you within its discordant layers of super-charged riffs. Where grueling solos can be heard dominating deeply rhythmic chord patterns while pacing a solid relationship deep in step.

Lightly parodying the classics in theme these tracks come with a flawless coherence that consistently delivers on good music. Where in that articulation Paganizer move effortlessly when furiously shifting their heavy and foreboding sound.  The dynamics of which are implemented with the greatest degree of craftsmanship and exceed the typical more popular death metal form.

It’s in sound knowledge that Paganizer are doing what they do.  On the Outskirts of Hades may imply that this EP is just going around by way of solid death metal but once they move off that ring road and into the city (of the damned) there’s going to be an eruption of hotter than -core metal.

8/10

About David Oberlin 519 Articles
David Oberlin is a composer and visual artist who loves noise more than a tidy writing space. You can often find him in your dankest nightmares or on twitter @DieSkaarj while slugging the largest and blackest coffee his [REDACTED] loyalty card can provide.