After last week’s barrage of nonstop blackened thrashing speed mania, surely I must be worn out by the mere mention of hellish riffs, rasped vocals, and demonic lyricism, right? Wrong! While this week isn’t nearly as jam packed as last when it comes to this beloved niche of the extreme metal underground, I was still able to sniff out one worthwhile release, coming to us all the way from Bahrain. Admittedly, I also had to ask Google, “Where the hell is Bahrain?” Turns out it’s a Middle Eastern island, situated between the coasts of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And if one digs deep enough, they’ll come across a rough and ready power trio by the name of Hellionight.
Formed in 2016, Hellionight have slowly but surely been making a name for themselves. They released an eponymous EP and appeared on a live 2021 split featuring other Bahrainian (Would that be the name for people from Bahrain?) metal acts. They even played the 2023 edition of Obscene Extreme: One of the most respected and beloved extreme metal festivals on the planet. It’s all been leading up to this moment, a decade since their formation, which finds Hellionight finally releasing their debut album, Witches’ Sabbat.
While Hellionight are a blackened thrash band, they aren’t in the traditional sense of the term. Witches’ Sabbat features both black and thrash metal in equal measures, seldom do the two ever intersect. The thrashers are more straightforward and in-your-face than anything, recalling the likes of Exodus and modern titans Warbringer on cuts like the opening “Extermination Now” and “Temple of Madness”, while “Evilust” is a no-frills, mosh-friendly two-stepper of pizza thrashing proportions. Good, friendly violent fun, yes, but not necessarily blackened thrash like one would expect from early Sodom or the wave of ’90s bands us headbangers hold so close to heart (Nifelheim, Aura Noir, D666, etc.)
When they aren’t thrashing and bashing, Hellionight conjure wicked spirits and unholy energy with a rotten kind of speedy turbo-charged black ‘n’ roll in the vein of Midnight. With an underlying punkish aggression and smattering of d-beats to boot, one can also draw comparisons to Toxic Holocaust and Wraith. “Electric Chair” and “Souls of Evil” are standout examples of this approach. Meanwhile, the aptly titled “Luciferian Pride” is the album’s most blatant display of black-thrash proper, especially during the outro with its flurry of minor chords. Come the closing title track, Hellionight black ‘n’ roll us to the abyss one last time, tapping that classic Venom vein and doing a damn good job at it.
Though I wouldn’t rank Hellionight on the top shelf of black/thrash/speed acts like the ones I reviewed last week (Speedslut’s production still has me in awe), they’re certainly closer to the top than the bottom. This band does everything you’d expect from a release of this nature without ever sounding redundant, uninspired, or flat-out tired. At 8 songs and just a little over 30 minutes, they keep it simple and sinister, which is what this subgenre is largely all about, save for when bands like Diabolic Night and Hexecutor elevate it to high art, but I digress. Witches and warlocks alike are bound to dig this slab of maniacal metal!
7 out of 10
Label: Witches Brew
Genre: Black/Thrash Metal
For fans of: Midnight, Toxic Holocaust, Wraith
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