Our lengthy Bathory journey now embarks to the eighth installment, hence the Octagon title, supposedly the low point. Following on from the polarizing Requiem, Quorthon's DIY spin on Thrash Metal takes another nose dive into a pale abrasion the ears do somehow adjust too. The snare rattles and bites, piercing at all times among the clatter of symbols and smothering of bass pedals. Distortion guitars make headway with a narrow band of fuzzy mud, just fractions shy of masking the tight riffage at work. He tones down his vocals to a more manageable degree of horror and again we have a disastrous formula you can't just outright dismiss.
For the year it would seem that influences from the emerging Groove Metal scene make subtle marks on the swing and bounce present in some compositions. Most remarkable is track two, Born To Die. Smelly angsty acoustic guitars open up what retroactive ears can only describe as a prototypical Nu Metal song. Getting past its initial thrashy opener, the music pivots to a syncopated sway of Drop D styled riffing an atypically generic trait. The delivery of anger fulled snarls and shouts are just the icing on the cake of this forecasting, bizarre oddity.
Glimmers of this moment teeter throughout but from this point its a downward trend. With exception to its keenest power chord arrangements and the blazing lead fretwork, the quality gives off local band vibes. Especially the lyrics, a lot of which caught my ear for sounding smart but often not saying a lot, just blasting phrases and social political words. Quorthon is a talented musician but the production is dreadful, stripping out anything inviting the songs offer. Its a bit like St. Anger, you're not sure what part is actually awful about this because it can produce some enjoyable moments. Despite confusion, in this eternal form it is a stinker.
Rating: 2/10