Reviews

Black Against Night

Decade The Impossible Scale of Increasing Slaughter EP

Few D-beaters out there stand out as much as Ontario’s DECADE, and the band’s unique range of styles is on display on this EP. We’ve seen a few different shades of DECADE over the course of their handful of releases, and this four-song record seems to have a hot little mix of everything. The chugging charge and ethereal vocals of the opener give way to the spaced-out, confusion-packed banger “Indifference” on the A-side. The flip opens with the crusty pounding of “Existence is Ignored” before the bass-heavy rocking swagger of the closing track, and the whole thing is painted with killer metal guitar licks. Some of the band’s best looks are when they pick up on less popular sources of inspiration like later ’80s-’90s DISCHARGE and FINAL BOMBS, and overall they’ve got an uncanny ability for forcing strange innovations into the genre with great results. If you haven’t heard their 2018 World Stops Turning LP or split with FATUM, you gotta check those too. These guys are killers.

Decade / Fatum split 12″

Russia’s FATUM should be no strangers to fans of brutal clenched-fist stench, and I dare say this is some of their fiercest material to date. Powerful dark metal crust, with full attention paid to the “metal” part of that descriptor. Canadian crusters DECADE stink up their side of the split with a destroyed collection of blown-out, metallic D-beat with a signature high-end snarl—if this is commentary on some of the questionable eras in the archives of D-beat history, then I dare say they hit the mark (and that bass tone—oooof!). Polished power from FATUM, damaged churn from DECADE—Malaysia’s Black Konflik released this on CD last year, happy to see it’s getting the treatment it deserves.