It's not often that I get to review a record with iconic horror imagery dripping all over, so it's a given that when you have an album cover with England's First Lady of Horror, vampiric Scream Queen Ingrid Pitt beckoning with her lovely, voluptuous image reflecting at you, you know that this is going to be a sanguinary record indeed. This is exactly what black death thrashers DEATH FEAST has done with its third record, "Risen from the Tomb." From Portugal, and formed in 2017, black death thrashers DEATH FEAST unleashed its debut album "The Feast of Death" in 2018, with the sophomore effort "Night of the Witches" following in 2020. Now, the blackened thrashers show that their love and thirst for all things bloody and insidious is as gargantuan as ever in their third full-length, "Risen from the Tomb", due for release on 31^st January.

So, just how ghastly is this record? The crypt of sanguine delights creaks open in "The Initiation" with an excerpt from one of Pitt's finest moments, rousing an aptly unsettling narrative to introduce you to the warped delights of DEATH FEAST. The howling fury of "Crossing the Fire" beckons pained black metal style vocals, clean solos, but all intertwined in heavy distortion and relentless riffing, managing to vividly convey a swell of flames licking up against a tormented soul with the perfect ambience of malicious intent in metal that's frightfully frenetic and relentlessly raw.

The malevolent concoction that DEATH FEAST meld creates a glowering and seething appeal, with the likes of "Banished from Monastery" showcasing some quality solos, and the thrash elements really engaging in "Commandments of Metal", offering a slew of tempos coupled with the croaking but commandeering appeal of Jorge's vocal strikes. "Devoted Assassin" manages to incorporate a heavy death metal leaning with thrash overtones in the guitar work and percussive heavy offerings that'll delight your ears for days. It's this ability to harness spewing aggression in all forms that DEATH FEAST does so well, creating a perilous appeal of infallible metal that's raw and primitive, macabre, and morose.

In the latter section of "Risen from the Tomb", funereal tones engage in the intro of "Hell Funeral" merging into a more evil-minded, chaotic slice of splendour with an undercurrent of rabidity, feasting off a multitude of nuances with a wholly black metal beating heart. It's saturated in sinister sonics, with an enrichment of abyssal base lines, a theme that backbones the entire album and consistently delights your dark soul. In my opinion, there's a universal appeal to this release because it carries anvil-heavy weight and conviction in boldly combining death, thrash, and black metal in one potent, poisonous mix. Tracks such as "Evil Crown" manage to earworm with its dirtied tones and infectious minor melody that insidiously caresses, whilst the title-track dominates with cleaner leanings and lingering vocals, and "Volcano" erupts with a bruising, burning black thrash metal display in the vein of VENOM.

Unusually, this wasn't love at first listen for me. If truth be told, I was expecting a standard death/thrash infusion and had probably calibrated my brain to anticipate the usual suspects. But after listening to "Risen from the Tomb" a few times, it's very apparent that DEATH FEAST is far more about unconventionality, and you should assume the unexpected from the outset. This isn't traditional death thrash; this is death thrash with a heavily overloaded black metal stake driven right through the heart of this record - even down to the raw and unpolished production - and it works.

If you enjoy your metal fervently carcinogenic, raw, and unvarnished, "Risen from the Tomb" is for you.<