Plaguemace – Reptilian Warlords
Release Date: 17th November 2023
Label: Napalm Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Sludge, Thrash.
FFO: Grave, Obituary, High on Fire, Entombed, Jungle Rot.
Review By: Rick Farley
Formed in 2020 in the heart of Denmark, this ferocious old school death metal band Plaguemace are set to unleash their debut album Reptilian Warlords on Napalm Records. Headbangable death and roll, spiced up with mud filled grooviness and ruthless brutality. The first of a series of concept albums taking place in the bands own fictional universe. Themes from Reptilian Warlords include anger, vengeance, desire, war, and enraging bloodthirst. Yeah, that sounds about right, especially that enraging bloodthirst part.
Album opener Cannibalicious is a brutal introduction to Plaguemace’s style of OSDM. It’s about as subtle as a rusty nail being hammered into your face. Huge, saw blade distorted riffs with rapid chugging, lumber about, while frantic lead melodies pierce your eardrums from above. It’s a primal, thunderous, heavy as fuck, relentless pummelling that kicks things off with neck breaking frenzy and unrelenting energy. No reason to reinvent the wheel, when you can just crush them with it.
First single, Impenetrable Leather, is a groove laden riff-fest fit for the swampy backwoods of Florida and the buzzing axes that came from Stockholm in the early nineties. The guitars by Simon Truelsen and Anton Holm Smidstrup are grimy and thrashy with metallic sharp edges, tearing away your flesh, while the bulky foundation of pounding drums and hulking bass keep the frenetic pace going. Blood soaked bellows from vocalist Andreas Truelsen sound like he’s shredding his larynx with every deep, guttural and horrific scream. This track sounds like a maelstrom of crazed riffs, berserking speed and deadly, groove filled hooks ready to destroy.
Plaguemace on Impenetrable Leather:
“It’s a short ferocious onslaught, depicting the ruthless brutality of the barbarian war clan. Armed with nothing but skin made of impenetrable leather, these brutes show absolutely no mercy as they mow down the enemy.”
I don’t know about you, but excessively heavy, old school death metal combined with a concept about barbarian war clans with leather skin utterly smashing the enemy sounds like a damn good time to me.
Ridiculously heavy, Rhythmic Demise, has a ton of deep rumbling from bassist Ruben Brandt that sounds like it will easily flatten any non-suspecting human within a ten-mile radius. The low-end foundation between him and drummer Matias Zacho, combined with heavily distorted fuzzy guitars, make this track a towering moss filled swamp monster, trudging through the grime to eventually snag you up and snap your bones in half. Down tempo-ed Sabbathy melodic riffs change up the pace enough to keep it extremely heavy when it sloughs back in. Brutal.
When it’s all said and done, Reptilian Warlords is an ultra-chunky, bone pulverizing frenzy of OSDM. Groovy, swampy stank faced riffs, grizzled compositions and extremely fun conceptual themes easily translate to a hella good time that will pummel the bejesus out of you every time you listen to it. The production from Andreas Linnemann is grimy enough to sound ugly as hell, but modern enough to maintain clarity between instruments and vocals. The guitar tone is raw, loud and in your face, while the drums are thick and full of thump. The audible bass rumbles underneath, giving everything density and real weight. The gutturals and screams are crisp and cut through like a bellowing giant. This is monstrously deep, sludgy, thrash filled death metal built for everyone that harkens back to the glory days of buzz saw energy with enough modern uniqueness that separates them from the pack. Not to mention completely badass cover art by Rasmus Hoeygaard.
Honestly we are not too far off from Plaguemace taking over the world, so if you’re a fan of OSDM done right, with roaring gutturals, grime soaked catchiness, and pit wrecking riffs, you should probably give this a spin or two now before the warlords finally come. 
(4.5 / 5)
