With longstanding bands such as ROTTING CHRIST and SEPTICFLESH, the Mediterranean/European country of Greece has established a phenomenal but criminally underrated Extreme Metal scene, specifically in the capital city of Athens. Another one of these such bands is the BIO-CANCER, who released their third full-length album “Revengeance” on September 8th through Dutch record label Hammerheart Records. Just like their Metal brothers in ROTTING CHRIST and SEPTICFLESH, BIO-CANCER is a band from Athens, except they’ve only been around since 2010 instead of the late 1980s to early 1990s. Prior to their recent record, the five-man Thrash Metal band released “Ear Piercing Thrash” in 2012 via the now-defunct Athens Thrash Attack and “Tormenting the Innocent” in 2015 via British label Candlelight Records. As for “Revengeance,” it is an approximately 44-minute album consisting of 8 tracks, each of which deliver a pleasant but harsh blow to any listener’s hearing and leaves no room to breathe.

The opening track “Citizen…Down!” gets things started right away, without any slow build or intro. It even goes as far as to give us a guitar solo at the very beginning from either Thanasis Andreou or Stavros Marinos. I was delightfully surprised to hear blast beats from Tomek Solomonidis on this song, which is particularly rare in the Thrash Metal genre. I was also amazed by the vocal power of Lefteris Hatziandreou, who uses a shrieking style that reminded me greatly of Mille Petrozza from German Thrash Metal legends KREATOR. In “44 Days in Hell,” we get more blast beats and shredding guitars, but we also receive growling background vocals from the guitarists Andreou and Marinos.

The third song "Footprints on My Back" shows the guitarists using more melodic riffs and Tomek Solomonidis incorporating more skank beats in his drumming style. The title track was one of the most intense on this album, in my opinion, as it seemed to use the most blast beats. However, the blast beating mode is turned off on "Dream Merchants." That doesn't make the song any less brutal, especially with the same musical style as "Footprints on My Back." Eventually, we come to the closing track "Bludgeoning Skullcrushing Mayhem," which is also the shortest track on "Revengeance." The song is only about 4 ½ minutes long–compared to the other songs' 5-6 minute-long durations–but the speed and sheer intensity of the band's instruments makes "Bludgeoning Skullcrushing Mayhem" a stunning closer. If anything, the music is as violent as the song title itself sounds.

It's been a long eight year wait for fans of BIO-CANCER, but apparently, the wait was definitely worth it. This is a near perfect Thrash Metal, filled with Death Metal-style blast beats, shredding guitar solos, and overall influences from Teutonic Thrash Metal. I had never heard of BIO-CANCER up until now, but their third album "Revengeance" definitely got my attention. I'll be keeping a close eye on these awesome Greek gentlemen from now on. Once you listen to this masterpiece, you will too.