Iconoclasm - Iconoclastic Warfare

ICONOCLASM - Iconoclastic Warfare (LUGBURZ - CD 1995)

“On my signal… unleash hell”; with this fragment - taken from “Gladiator” movie -  this album begins and damn, it is a perfect description for the whole “Iconoclastic Warfare”, because those Belgians do unleash hell and next 45 minutes are pure black / thrash metal slaughter, based on the tradition means for the genre. Iconoclasm plays damn relentless, violent and insanely furious metal, where the riffs combine the black metal atmosphere and thrash metal sharpness and aggression and are able to cut the throats, taking no prisoners, but just slaying them all with no mercy. Excellent playing, many totally awesome riffs, total headbanger… I suppose this is the best description for this album. And I sincerely enjoyed listening to it, yes! This album is filled with aggression and that energy, which blasts into your face with great strength. It is old school to the bone, but at the same time it is infected with that black metal harshness and atmosphere, so it is not just “cut’n’paste” the old riffs type of album.

And of corpse there are some other bands, which also are playing similar stuff… Let me just mention Desaster, Demonizer, Nocturnal Breed and more… maybe Iconoclasm is more infected by the (mainly Scandinavian) black metal than those other bands, as they really have some influence from such Enthroned, Marduk, even Darkthrone here and there… but they do it their own way, often blasting like crazy with some totally fast and sharp hellish metal, other time going into some slower, more memorable and catchy, traditional stuff. And I like this diversity of “Iconoclastic Warfare” a lot, it’s not one of those monotonous albums, but really Iconoclasm delivers some goodies and brings many great ideas into their music. There are many strong and awesome riffs, many ideas, which may seem typical, but here, with these songs, they’re just played in excellent way. Even the fact that in one fragment Iconoclasm decided to use a female vocalist (“Screams of Banshee”) do not disturb me, even if it’s so unusual for such raw and aggressive black / thrash metal albums. But if you like something totally insane and fast then check out the title song, “Sons of Fire”, “Beer Metal Satan” (which is like an anthem, dedicated to diehard metal maniacs!!!!! KILLER!), then also “Wolfpack”, which is both fast, but in other moments also totally thrashing monster. Then there’s “Welcome to Hell”, which… well, maybe it’s because of the title, but it does have more Venom than any other song on the album hehe.

And yes, as the booklet says, it is “another completely keyboards-free product”!!!!! It’s killer black / thrash metal devastation. I’m not sure what is Iconoclasm up to nowadays, if they still exist… I also have the last CD, which they released – split with Panchrysia – but it’s been released in 2006. Since then there’s a silence in Iconoclasm camp, but I hope this death troop will come back and attack one day!

Standout tracks: “Iconoclastic Warfare”, “Fedelm’s Prophecy”, “Wolfpack”, “Beer Metal Satan”

Final rate: 75/100