Step aside Lucifer! There's a new archangel on the brimstone lined block and it's dick is bigger than your pitchfork and tail combined! Yes, I'm talking about the newly formed Krotalus which hails from South Carolina here and indeed for a debut, Blood Offerings is the kind of album that practically decimates everything in its path and leaves no survivors in its wake to tell of its overly surpassing might. Though the band's bio proudly hails them as a Thrash/Speed Metal vehicle that take its cues from the likes of stalwarts like Possessed, Venom, and Slayer, the songwriting fleshes its medley out with a more contemporary helping of scathing Black Metal which at times seems reminiscent of December Wolves, and Forest of Impaled. From the very moment that the play button is pressed up until the very end, the performance is played with such meticulous precision and articulate poetry that every instrument serves as a commanding presence within this musical army. More significantly here, when you compare Krotalus to the lot of 80's worshipping novelty acts like Merciless Death, Evile, Warbringer, etc. all of which compensate the lack of solid songwriting by glorifying unrefined stereotypes and cliques, it's amazing to hear how much more sophisticatedly mature they approach their art. So much so that the staunching anti-christian slant to their lyrical content has more merit than the average Dark Funeral or Immolation record.

First, take the drums for instance, which surprisingly serve as the driving, domineering entity at the forefront of this entire recording. Instantly upon hearing the booming echo of the bass drums, the constant regal snap and bite of the snare, and fluid dexterity in which Mr. Lytle handles the fills and tempo shifts I'm instantly reminded of what the permanent outcome would be if say, the great Dave Lombardo and Horgh of Immortal had spawned their very own love child. The second track, "Forest of the Impaled" sees again, Clay Lytle hitting the cymbals and snare so hard that one point you can simply imagine peeled skin and blood flying everywhere until the band's recording studio looks like the back room of the local Pathmark's butcher department. Like an overseer on a plantation, he does one heck of a job whipping his fellow bandmates into keeping up the frenzied pace throughout and doesn't seem to ever let up.

Then there's the overflowing abundance of riffs. Well, before I get to that first consider if you will, some of the impressive guitar tandems of yore that always stood out; Sherman and Denner, Hanneman and King, Tipton and Downing, etc. Basically those with the uncanny ability to feed off of one another's strengths and well, make the entire dueling banjo sequence in the film, Deliverance seem like two stoner retards competing at the easiest level setting on Guitar Hero. Well now you can add Bradley and Brown (Heyyy, I like the sound of that!) to the list. Like two actors in a Shakespearean drama onstage competing for the spotlight and the affection of the crowds in attendance, both riffmeisters attack their axes with a controlled and calculated ease which on songs such as "Stripped of Innocence," "Evil Incarnate," and "The Dark Prophecy" which instantly has me recalling some of the tastefully intricate melodic moments of Coroner. Then there are the soaring harmonies on songs like "Blood Offerings" that bring Hank Shermann to mind.

Sadly while I wish my overall rating could have been much higher but what unfortunately stands in the way of that are the vocals. While Mr. Chad Bradley does a decent enough job handling the role of frontman with the vigor and commanding poise of a modern day Julius Caesar, at best however he comes across sounding like Rush's Geddy Lee if he was doing an impression of Obituary's John Tardy at a cocktail party. Perhaps it has something to do with the effeminate warble in his vocal delivery. Yet that seems to be the only area where I'm not fully convinced on but otherwise I'd readily anticipate another follow up which to see how farther they've continued to progress. I tell you this though, if there's one band that shows enough heart to the point where they've have practically ripped it out of their chests and dangled it still beating furiously in front of the faces of all naysayers, it's these guys.
I'll gladly salute to that!

By Rob Aloi