SPEARHEAD - Theomachia CD Review

ARTIST: Spearhead
TITLE: Theomachia
YEAR: 2011
LABEL: Agonia Records
REVIEWED BY: Liz Anderson

When I was about to give this record a listen, I honestly didn’t know what to expect since I’ve never heard this band before. Once the album began to play, I was instantly hit with some seriously fast, aggressive, and viciously proficient material. This album is a solid demonstration of the bands proficient ability to compose some serious metal, rich in death defying riffs, and heart pounding fury that no metaler would ever want to miss out on live. Now, I am honestly hoping that I’ll get a chance to catch this band live. Judging from what I’ve heard on there album, there live shows should have some of the most intense mosh pits. The track "Perdition Tide" is like an electric volt of rage aimed directly to your ear drums, fashioned with lightening fast speed and sharp, clean sounding riffs. . "Prey to the Conqueror" gives the listener a heavy, rhythmic intro while maintaining the songs head crushing rage which pretty much defines there trade mark sound.

Spearhead's album Theomachia delivers a serious blast of some really heavy explosive riffs and raging vocals. It’s something I really wouldn’t recommend for someone with heart problems listen to. Due to this consistent intensity through – out this whole album, a majority of the tracks has a tendency to mesh into one big sequence of pounding rage akin to the rein of artillery fire that Spearhead's sound seems to represent. Although this is in no way the fault of the band, most of the tracks tend to sound rather similar with a very strong Morbid Angel sounding influence. The song "Autocrator" has a combination of this sound meshed in with the hard hitting blasts of Torturer (Belphegor).

This album has the threatening shock qualities that are along the lines of Dark Funeral or Marduk's trusted attacks. This entire album is fast, aggressive, viciously proficient and well produced. This is very much what one would imagine if you took the heart of Morbid Angel and added some swifter, aggressive riffs and some really high speed drumming along with some raspy midrange vocals. It could use a bit more creativity to allow this album to stand out a bit more out of the other bands in the same genera, but its is definitely one of the most intensely pump up Death Metal albums around. If you’re into bands such as Morbid Angel, Centurian and Angelcorpse, Dark Funeral, or any fast, classic-era Death Metal, then this is definitely an album to get into.

TRACKLISTING:
01. Eschatos
02. The Lie of Progression
03. Kshatriya
04. Perdition Tide
05. Polemos Pater Panton
06. Praesagium
07. Herald the Lightning
08. Prey to the Conqueror
09. Autocrator
10. To Slake the Thirst of Ages
11. Aftermath