Desaster Kill All Idols Review
I first stumbled headlong into the German Blackened Thrash juggernaut Desaster thanks to their 2007 slab of raw hatred “666 – Satan’s Soldier Syndicate”, and I remember foaming at the mouth like a junkie od’ing when I heard it. It felt like being chased by Satan himself while escaping the gates of hell in a rusted-out hot rod. Then life happened I dropped the pen, picked up an instrument again, and I fell off the face of the Desaster map entirely. And who could blame me? There are hardly no fucking music stores anymore, no sacred shrines with dimly lit Metal sections to thumb through. We live in a dystopia of algorithms and beige playlists. I hate you, World. Deeply. Truly. Passionately. And if you’re reading this and you support this kind of bullshit, you have an open invitation to kiss my fist.
So, imagine the split-brain aneurysm I had when “Kill All Idols” showed up like a flaming axe through my inbox. Not only are Desaster still active, but they’ve also gone full berserker and cranked out five albums while I was off playing Drums in divebars, shacks and other shady places. Now, several spins into this blood-soaked masterpiece, I realize I’ve been missing out on divine carnage.
Desaster is a band you do not compare. They aren’t walking anyone else’s trail, they’re stomping through the forest with fire on their boots, snarling like feral animals, and laying waste to genre norms. That whole “Black Metal” label gets tossed around way too often, and I’m telling you right now: most of it sucks. Yeah, I said it. Your feelings hurt? GOOD. Let'em bleed. Half the “Black Metal” scene turned into mopey dudes in corpse paint recording lo-fi howls in their parents' basement with a fucking Rock Band mic. That’s not evil, that’s embarrassment in drop D.
But Desaster, these bastards are the real deal. “Kill All Idols” sounds like it was forged in the pits of an ancient battlefield and recorded during a sword and hammer fight. That’s because they tracked the whole thing live in their rehearsal space, eyeball to eyeball, sweat and spit flying, no punch-ins, no Pro Tools fakery, just pure, unfiltered Metal Mayhem. You can feel it. It breathes. It bleeds. It screams.
The guitars are riffs wrapped in barbed wire delivered with all the subtlety of a boot to the face. The leads, shrieking banshee wails from the cosmic void. The hooks, catchier than a zombie plague in a Strip club on 2 for 1 night. And underneath it all, that rhythm section is a war machine, precision devastation locked in tighter than a coffin nail while the vocalist howls out sermon after blasphemous sermon like he's preaching from a pulpit made from the human remains of his enemies.
There’s a flavor of Black ‘n Roll swagger here that grabs you by the neck and demands you drink grain alcohol and dance in traffic. It’s not that overcooked symphonic b.s. or blastbeat-for-blastbeat’s-sake nonsense that plagues so much of “modern Black Metal.” This is the dirty, whiskey-soaked Motörhead-dipped-in-hellfire side of the genre that too many bands have forgotten, and Desaster have it coursing through their veins in SPADES.
Sure, I could sit here and pull apart individual tracks like some tame critic with a monocle and a clipboard but fuck that. This whole album is a war cry. But if you're the type who needs a place to start, go directly to “Kill the Idol,” “Great Repulsive Force,” “Fathomless Victory” and the closer “Idol’s End”, which is an instrumental that screams of ending credits after a hard-fought victory. Four sonic pipe bombs that’ll rip the top off your skull and paint the walls with your expectations.
I’m pissed that I forgot about Desaster. But I’m also grateful, because this kind of rediscovery, is like finding a long-lost tool of death under your bed just before the apocalypse kicks off.
In a time when bands are turning into corporate mascots or cosplay caricatures, Desaster are still out here drinking blood, breaking necks, and recording albums the real way, face to face, with strings bleeding, amps screaming and no bullshit.