A good thing about the internet: greater accessibility and democratization of information. A shit thing about the internet: it kinda turns everyone into a smug bastard. Do you think you know what On Fowl Of Tyrant Wing means? If you said yes, please go to jail. In Belgium, from whence today’s ümlaüted protagonists Bütcher hail, the official languages are Dutch, French, and German. Google Translate thus yields this syllabus of silliness:
What have we learned here (other than, “ask stupid questions, get stupid answers”)? Music, like language, is malleable. It may arise in one place and reappear in another, and if its origins are murky its kinship each to the next nevertheless shines through. Bütcher’s third album, the Sphinx-like On Fowl of Tyrant Wing, is a blazing, rude, purposely untutored exercise in speeeeeeeed, thrashing speed (to the tune of either “Scream bloody gore” or “Roots, bloody roots”).
Did you know that in the time of the Roman Empire, Belgium was known as Gaul’s Boutique, and that this is why Bütcher is so adept at offering up their very own speed metal bouillabaisse? None of this is true, but it doesn’t mean it’s not right. Speed metal is a notoriously tricky style to define, and on its face you can’t pin Bütcher to any precise moment in time or genre, yet whether On Fowl is ripping its way through thrash, proto-black, rough and ragged power, or coked-out traddy twiddling, the undercurrent of speed (both in terms of tempo and ethos) is never far away. Will you hear things that are familiar? By absolute gum, ye shall. Willst thou sniff out the sulfur and motor oil of Show No Mercy or Kill ‘em All, the elegant evil and bronzed élan of the Mercyful Fate EP or Blind Guardian’s Battalions of Fear? Friend, consider thy nostrils thusly stuffed!
On Fowl of Tyrant Wing is something of an inverse of King Diamond’s Fatal Portrait, because the A-side is a set of standalone bruisers and the B-side a conceptually connected suite. The A-side puts an even greater emphasis on the lurid, sleazy speed metal thrust of tunes like “Speed Metal Samurai” (which is not at all like Tokyo Blade by way of Destruction’s Sentence of Death but also is not entirely unlike it) and “Koraktor’s Iron Rule.” “Blessed by the Blade” is particularly vicious, and despite the fact that it is neither about Type O Negative nor Cheetos, if you prize Darkthrone’s The Underground Resistance, then “Keep the Steele (Flamin’ Hot)” should scoot your boots.
The album’s back half tilts to the epic, tweaking things in a slightly more elaborate direction similar to what Bütcher did on the title track of their previous album (the almost equally delirious 666 Goats Carry My Chariot). These filthy (An)twerps still keep things substantially in the red, but across this stretch of three expansive tunes, they indulge in some fancier fare. They introduce a melodic motif in “A Sacrifice to Satan’s Spawn” that gets reintroduced towards the close of “An Ending in Fyre.” There’s some organ. You may divine a cowbell. Tune in to the assuredly-no-Mercyful-Fate-influence-whatsoever of “A Gypsy’s Tale” to point your ear at a sitar. But in all of this, if you think these Belgians have waffled into daft softness you shall soon be speared at the lunging tip of lusty speed. It’s fast and mean, is basically my point, even when it’s a little slow and sweet.
At 43 minutes, On Fowl is just about right. Individual songs don’t necessarily stand out as very different from each other, and even though I probably won’t wake up in the morning humming any specific riffs to myself, the album succeeds because it is a pure vibe album. Its influences – and at times outright homage – are both legion and blatant. The high screaming vocals occasionally dip gratifyingly into Cirith Ungol territory. The last track has a winking line about “Satan laughing, spreading his wings.” “Sacrifice to Satan’s Spawn” (especially check just before the 6-minute mark) has an exact Iron Maiden shuffling riff and drums ripoff. This might be the point of a review where some other dunder-headed chunder-thunk might say something like, “Your mileage may vary,” but listen up, Jack – if you’re trying to check out On Fowl of Tyrant Wing with a library card instead of a six-pack of spiritual rotgut, you’ve already lost.
Bütcher is not answerable for your folly. They have provided a feast, and if you bring yourself to riffless famine then so be it. But, look – do you see? Can you squint through the flames and blot out the diabolical murmurings enough to see On Fowl Of Tyrant Wing’s true form as it comes into being? We did it. We can go to jail together, overjoyed in the uproarious glee of heavy metal.
