Tuesday 19 October 2021

ALBUM REVIEW: Criminal, "Sacrificio"

By: Richard Maw

Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 17/09/2021
Label: Metal Blade Records



 

“Sacrificio” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Live On Your Knees
2. Caged
3. The Whale
4. Zona de Sacrificio
5. After me, the Flood
6. Dark Horse
7. Theocrazy
8. Sistema Criminal
9. Zealots
10. Age of Distrust
11. Hunter and the Prey
12. Ego Killer

The Review:

Chile's (and England's/Spain's) finest, Criminal, are back with this rip-roaring, thrashing, seething beast: “Sacrificio”. Right from the opener “Live On Your Knees”, the band sets their stall out and goes for the throat. Anton Reisenegger delivers riff after riff, sandpaper-throated vocals and a sense of real conviction (no pun intended).

It sounds great, too- with real sounding drums, thick guitars and audible bass in the mix. This is thrash, by way of some early kind of death metal influences; there are blasts here and there, plenty of atonal riffing and a certain South American ferocity to the delivery. If you like your BTR/Arise-era Sepultura, then this should be right up your street.

The band is nearly thirty years into making records at this point, so Reisenegger can be described as a lifer- one who lives and breathes metal. Criminal, Lock Up, Pentagram Chile... it's an incredible and prolific resume.

Twelve tracks, every one of them under five minutes long and every one of them as vicious as the last. There really are no weak links here. There is absolutely no need for a track by track as the standard is so high throughout. The quasi-title track in Spanish stands out as a neck snapper for reference, but you can play any one of these songs and get the flavour. Vicious and relentless, this is superlative thrash/death from a master. Listen to it. Buy it.

“Sacrificio” is available HERE 

Band info: bandcamp || facebook