The debut EP from Milwaukee’s Prezir , Contempt, was a solid black/death metal assault, but I’d expect no less from a project that includes Rory Heikkila from Shroud of Despondency on guitar ,vocalist Luka Đorđević from epic Tolkien death metal act Khazaddum, and has since added Milwaukee scene veteran Jerry Hauppa from Concentric, Northless and Ara on bass. And on the band’s full length debut, the band improves and sharpens their iron with a more biting and melodic display of seething 90s black metal.
With a little more shrill, slicing tone and focus of frosty, tremolo picked melodies, As Rats Devour Lions is 10 tracks of blackened fury that rarely lets up. The 8 songs have no filler or interludes or atmospherics, but occasionally dip one steel clad boot into black thrash sneer here and there (“Janicari”, “Hamasta Death Ritual”).
A couple of the better tracks from the Contempt EP show up (“Serpents in the House of Ra”, “Dar El Harb”), so unfortunately this isn’t all new material, but the new ones such as closer “Oedipus Context” with its sly, bristling melody line, show a nice melodic development. But the guys can simply rip faces to on tracks like “Idealogue Alchemy” and “Plagiarized Infamy”. Đorđević has a perfect shriek and occasional growl and Hauppa’s bass seems a little more prominent than the EP along with an overall more crisp and sharp production, making for a ripping little debut album from a band that should start making noise in the USBM scene with continued improvement.
