I wasn’t familiar with Greece’s Rapture until Paroxysm Of Hatred landed on my proverbial desk. Formed in 2012, Rapture has to its name three EPs, a split with Brazilian thrashers Toxic Carnage, and one previous full-length, 2015’s Crimes Against Humanity, which was limited to 700 copies. Unfortunately, none of that had crossed my radar until now.
The good news is that Paroxysm is absolutely strong enough to make me go back and check out what I could find of those earlier efforts. (The less-good-but-still-good news is that Paroxysm is the strongest of their efforts thus far – more on that in a bit.) This latest full-length is a convincingly rabid slab of classic-styled death/thrash, leaning on both halves of that equation in equal measure, and doing so to very fine results.
Label: Memento Mori
Operating well within the death/thrash paradigm and trying no artistic detours, Paroxysm Of Hatred succeeds on two fronts, both of them equally important. Coming straight down the middle of the stylistic pike, it overcomes its potential for lack of identity through the tried-and-true combo of sharp riffs and unbridled energy. From the opening of “Thriving On Atrocity” onward, it’s clear that the band is set to kill – guitarists Nikitas Melios and Apostolos Papadimitriou rip through tremolo-picked thrashers with ferocious abandon, and the rhythm section of Stamatis Petrou and Giorgos Melios propels everything forward with maniacal force. Perhaps it’s due to Rapture’s relative youth – the average age here is just under 20, with drummer Giorgos only 18 – but there’s a whip-cracking electricity that runs through these tunes, a tightly-wound speed that isn’t chaotic, isn’t ramshackle, yet teeters against the edge of it, and that boundary-pushing puts the whole of Paroxysm a step above when it comes to headbanging glory. It’s the power of the young, the energy, the attitude, but it’s reined in and controlled by just enough, tempered. At its heart, Rapture’s thrash is Teutonic speed with a toned-up tightness, pushed forward into the violence of first-wave classic death metal. Rapture slices; they dice; they groove; they pummel, and all with razor-sharp riffs delivered with a practiced skill that belies their age.
The previous Rapture releases exhibited those traits, as well, but where Paroxysm Of Hatred stands above its predecessors is in the vocals. On those earlier offerings, Papadimitriou’s voice was more bark than bite, more shouted and thus more classic thrash, almost a crossover sound at times, whereas now he’s adopted a much more feral and fitting snarling growl. It’s a simple shift, but it bolsters the former element of the death / thrash mix, and it helps give Paroxysm additional menace. It’s what pushes across the line between early Sepultura’s ferocity and Insanity’s madness, between Kreator’s chaos and Death’s bloody, gory, screaming perfection.
A killer opener, “Thriving On Atrocity” spits riffs with glee, before dropping down into an Exodus-worthy groovy middle section, one of the album’s first and most prominent moments of straight-ahead Bay Area-styled thrash. Conversely, the tremolo-riffed and deep-growled tail of “Taken By Apathy” exhibits the album’s most outright death metal leanings, particularly in the Azagthoth-ian guitar solo that bubbles forth from below, and “Quintessence Of Lunacy” mines a more German / Brazilian-styled madness. There’s merit in each of these eight songs, but the album’s literal defining moments come in the two-part title track, the first subtitled “Procreation” and the second “Revelation.” In the short breakdown in the center of the former, you can almost literally hear Giorgos trying to break free, before he and the whole band jump back to full-tilt slaying, all carving riff and Hanneman/King-indebted squalling solo. “Revelation” breaks forth with more classic thrashing in the introductory section, holding its swaggering riffs together with twisting turnarounds, through a down-tempo triplet breakdown and epic return, and all of it ending the album on a seven-minute furiously fun finale.
At the end of the day, we all listen to metal for a variety of different reasons, but I’d be willing to bet that the energy that comes from a good fast and furious thrashing is enough to move most of us, even if it’s one that falls in line with most of its stylistic brethren. If you’re in that majority, and if you enjoy the all-powerful combination of riff and fury, then Paroxysm Of Hatred is one for you. Turn it up and thrash away.
