CRUEL FORCE – under the sign of the moon – ANCIENT MOON LP

Black Metal, Thrash – ancient Moon version – Shadow Kingdom Records

Originally released during the summer of 2011, CRUEL FORCE’s Under the Sign of the Moon was as sweltering as the weather. Whilst keeping the same sound as their debut album, The Rise of Satanic Might, just a year prior – fierce and frenzied blackthrash in the old German tradition, with the emphasis on BLACK – here on CRUEL FORCE’s second LP did the quartet get even dirtier, digging back to equally early Venom and Motörhead at times. The gallop was insistent and ominous, and sounded like the proverbial Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…if they knelt before the ancient gods of Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction! And whereas that no-less-considerable debut featured isolated leads (in other words: no backing rhythm guitar), guitarist Slaughter filled out the sound, which, alongside vocalist Carnivore’s gruffer delivery here, made everything more thundering. In other words, MANDATORY listening now and forever for thrash diehards, and at long last reissued on a worldwide scale!