When you hear the terms Thrash Metal and Death Metal, you usually think of Florida, San Francisco and even Germany. NOT TODAY! Deep down in Brazil out of all places lies one of the Death metal's finest gems. Brazilian Death Metal titans VULCANO jump back with a vicious bite on their new album "Wholly Wicked" released via Renegados Records. Let's see what the one of the main Influences of SEPULTURA are going to do to our ears!

The album opens up with "The Tenth Writing", almost instantly you can tell this band are back with a vengeance as the classic death metal sound from Zhema Rodero's guitar riffs dominate the track and will do so for the rest of the album. Oh and did I forget to mention? You will be head banging a lot to those riffs I just mentioned, they are fresh yet keep you thinking you have gone into a time machine and Thrash Metal had just started.

Not only does Luiz Carlos have the coolest and snazziest name for a death metal vocalist, but his vocals are fierce and very sharp to keep your neck aching for a long time, and the best part is... THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST SONG.

Yes this album packs a massive punch before even moving onto the other tracks that follow. The Next track "Pentagram" almost feels like they added a pinch of Black metal into the mix. Whatever they did, it seems to be working and keeping me head banging while I'm typing this.

Again, the riffs of Mr Rodero are absolutely fantastic and his solos bring an even more old School feeling to the already impressive comeback. It actually feels like I'm listening to an old school death metal album that should have been made in the 80's!

"Daughters Of Pagan Rituals" is the next bullet being fired being from VULCANO's lethal weapon that is this album, the drums, the riffs, the vocals, the bass line, everything just spells out "EVIL AS SHIT" to me. The pace of this track gives off everything from a very fast start to a mid-paced head banging fiesta as the song moves on!

For the intro segment of "Infusion Of Hatred" I actually felt like I was going to be possessed by the evil sound that was coming from the riffs (Like seriously, where the hell do these riffs keep coming from?) Then I was proven right when my soul was sucked right into my speakers to the point where I felt like I could see VULCANO themselves laughing in my face at how screwed I am.

So after the torture my neck has been going through with this album, it seems to be sticking to the awesomeness it started with in the first few seconds of the album, unfortunately, the neck is still going through pain and suffering with the next track "The Return of A Long night" which feels like they are switching between the Death and Thrash elements, which to me, is so unique that a band can just switch up their sound with each individual song on the same album to the point it feels like you're listening to 2 completely different albums!

Up next is "Thirst For Vengeance" which is the song that sticks out a lot more than the other songs on this album, it almost feels like I've just turned on a DREAM THEATER album (Which is both impressive and strange for a death metal band). However, like the rest of the album, it swiftly goes back to fast pace thrash blasts and gritty vocals to match. Despite the DT sounding intro of the song, it is certain that VULCANO have been preparing for this album for a long time as every song o far as been top notch and usually that doesn't happen with modern albums especially those that are done by a returning band.

We hit the title track "Wholly Wicked" and the evil sounding album hasn't lost its touch at all and it feels like I have no energy to head bang much more, which is a shame. But back to the album, this is a ferocious blast of energy and darkness which once again brings back the 80's thrash/death feel. Honestly, why don't more bands release comeback albums like this? It's so good!

"Tormented" is as evil as the last song and alongside this brings a lot more reasons to head bang, and with a few snippets of silence from the guitars allow us to appreciate the fast paced and raw sounding drum blasts from Arthur Von Barbarian which shadow the rest of the music. Oh, and when i say shadow, I mean shadow as in like a shark shadowing its prey before lunging up and going in for the kill. That is how vicious this band and album are proving to be right now.

As we venture towards the end of this album, I'm actually disappointed knowing this is going to end, I've had so much fun listening to this album and I'm glad I've had up to 10 listens on the album so far, it's grown to me so much and I'm pretty tempted to say I'm in love with it and the riffs that are locked within, alongside the gritty satanic vocals, aggressive and fast as hell drums and a bass that's heavy enough to destroy the walls leading to your neighbour's house.

"Malevelont Mind" does exactly this with a mid-paced riff that's so heavy it resurrects the snapped neck i mentioned earlier and snaps it again, with a chorus section that sounds very thrash crossover, it gives me more high hopes for this album as it shows the band are not afraid to jump boundaries, then again we are and have been talking about a band that is the main influence of bands like SEPULTURA and other bands from the Brazilian metal scene.

Finally we hit the end of the album with "Blowing Death", which has a more black metal feeling than anything else of this album, if they break any more boundaries I think the gates of hell will actually appear and destroy us all, but if we're being destroyed with the music of this album or with it at least in the background as we are tortured till our demise, then I can die happy. This is a death metal album that proves that no matter how old you are, you can always bring powerful and evil sounding music back from the grave

My overview of this album; PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM IF YOU LIKE DEATH METAL AND THRASH METAL, You will not be disappointed, as the band obviously proves they are more than capable of writing music that is definitely on par or better than the older material before this!