It’s been since 2019 that Austin’s Trench Warfare released their debut album, Hatred Prayer, and finally the underground gets to rejoice on album #2, Achtung! Destroy The Weak.
A bunch has transpired since the debut album in the band’s camp. The recording lineup and current band lineup are a bit different. The debut album was recorded with Jay H. Gorania on vocals, Tony Goyang Jr. and Dustin Putz on guitars, Jake Holmes on bass, and Ronnie Parmer (Malevolent Creation, Brutality, Amon, etc) on drums.
The current line-up is Jay on vocals, Dustin on guitars, and JP Campo on drums. The current lineup hails from Texas and Oregon, and their debut was suitably brutal with nods to Morbid Angel, Terrorizer, Dismember, and some black metal nods and thrashing too. This new one is a whole different animal. As taken from the promo description: The album was recorded at Come And Track It Studios in Austin, Texas, by John Petri and Justin McClenny, and mixed by none other than Jarrett Pritchard in Florida. This production slays.
“Follow the Circling Vultures” starts with a filthy guitar riff right into the old-school blasting, with Jay sounding a bit more like Martin Van Drunen on this, if MVD also went a little hardcore. Supremely powerful and brutal, Ronnie’s drumming is exceedingly tight and destructive. So yes, some Malevolent Creation influence creeps into this sucker in that respect, because of the increased intensity. This opening song is relentless. This is how you open up your new album after being away for so long. The guitar tone also takes on a Terrorizer tone, so there is a little grind element to the guitar riffs.
If “Dissenter” is not in the band’s upcoming live shows, then I will have to challenge Jay to an arm-wrestling contest. This song has a huge Terrorizer tone and influence on it, in terms of the song length, blasting, and filth. This song is catchy, and the riffs are memorable, with enough time changes to swivel your head clean off your pathetic shoulders.
“Embrace the Flames”, at over five minutes, is long, but encompasses the band’s full sound. Dirty guitar riffing, monster double pounding blasts, and some black metal slow down riffing prior to the minute mark, then right into the fast parts. The song slows down more that gets into the faster realms. Intense. We even get some guitar solos, and the double bass drums are mixed perfectly. They will collapse your chest cavity in a nanosecond or less. Jay sounds like a madman in this song, and this is pure aggression.
“Gluttonous Feast of Perversion” features a nice doomy opening riff for a while that pounds you into dust, as if George “The Animal” Steele is stuffing that turnbuckle down your throat. The speed comes in, then an old-school, early 90’s drum pattern that has Morbid Angel all over it. The midsection part has atmosphere, barking vocals, some cool harmonies, and allows the listener to catch their breath for a moment. This is a beatdown, pit-heaving moment as well.
The title track ends this highly intense album. There is plenty of blasting and high-intensity moments, and about ¾ of the way through, the slower moments take over for a bit. Heavy, moody, and punishing, this moment is one of the best on the album, then more blasting.
Achtung! Destroy The Weak is brutal. With a minimalistic album cover design, Trench Warfare comes out of the starting gates and never really lets up on this. Some of the slower and moodier moments, the band should expand upon and stick with those elements, rather than blasting right after them, all the time. It just makes the faster parts more intense and abrupt slower moments more of that gut punch we all want when listening to brutal music. Aside from this, the songs are catchy, brutal, and this is so frickin’ vicious. Welcome back, fellas!
