Bolt Thrower
Honour, Valour, Pride
Metal Blade
Bolt Thrower are an extremely powerful death metal outfit known by many for their awesome cover artwork (a cartoonish/comic bookish military motif). The cover of Honour, Valour, Pride leaves the potential listener with no questions as to the type of music entailed… the soldier is firing a VERY large weapon and his arms are the size of tree trunks. Nothing but pure power on this record, folks!
Honour starts with “Contact…” a slow metal stomper, with garbled, growled vocals and ferocious guitars. Dave Ingram (formerly of Benediction) now “sings” for Bolt Thrower, yet his vocals aren’t that different from their past vocalist. “Honour,” one of three title tracks, is a spooky song, complete with gothic sounding guitar melodies. In “Valour,” the second title track, the listener is subjected to the ever-annoying blastbeat, along with the “jud jud” feel of the previous songs. The rest of the record rocks in a machine-like manner, never letting up, and completely destroying the eardrums from start to finish.
To put it simply, if you like metal, you probably already like Bolt Thrower and probably already own this. If you don’t and you love metal, get this and everything else you can find by B.T. (especially Mercenary). Honour, Valour, Pride tends to get a bit samey in spots, but so do all of the metal greats. These guys are legends, and deservedly so. If you like your metal rockin’ and to the point, with out the corniness of corpse paint and skulls, go for Bolt Thrower. Honour rocks!
Metal Blade Records: http://www.metalblade.com
