PYRRHIC is an Extreme Metal band based out of Norway. "Vile Slumber" is the band's debut EP, and contains five tracks. Formed just this year, the quintet describes their music as a mix between Black and Death Metal. With members from bands like BLOOD RED THRONE and GUARDIANS OF TIME, the band has a lot of live experience and can't wait to take this show on the road. "Deafening the Light" leads off the album. It opens with a charging riff and thunderous drumming, along with a long vocal scream. The blueprint here is basically Black Metal, mostly from the vocal shrieks. But, following the first verse, there is an instrumental passage of melody before the chaos returns. The screams are so vile that they could wake the dead. "God Devourer" uses lower guttural utterances along with screams that you can feel resonating deep in your gut. The instruments play very tightly together. Clean vocals spring up out of nowhere, then it's back to the previous sound.

"Rotting Lambs" opens with clean guitars, and some subdued vocal shrieks. Then comes the madness. The instruments are so fast that it's almost like a blur of lightning strikes that come multiple per second. It settles into a groove for just a spell, then it's back to the chaotic sounds that are unrelenting. "Their Displaced Hands" is another burner...this album packs about as much sound into a cubic inch as possible. A well-timed guitar solo, which is a bit unusual for the genre, prefaces another impossibly fast sequence.

"Vile Slumber" is a super-fast and tight song with vile vocals and instruments that move faster than the speed of light. The lead guitarist is quite skilled, firing up and down the fretboard with an unmatched precision. Overall, what really set this band apart from the thousands of other Black Metal bands out there was the ultra-tight instrumentation and sheer speed of performance. I don't think you are going to find this in many other bands out there. Unlike a lot of Black Metal, these guys are skilled at their instruments as well. This was a bullet train ride into Hell.