Imagine going to a show, let’s say Flock Of Seagulls, for example, and they refuse to play I Ran. Or Blue Oyster Cult decides: “Fuck it, you’ve heard (Don’t Fear) The Reaper too many times already.”
Well, that’s the audacious conceit behind this live-without-an-audience Death Angel album.
The Bastard Tracks delivers nothing but deep cuts from the long-running Bay Area thrashers, stuff only the diehards would recognise: tracks like Lord Of Hate from their 2008 album Killing Season, Succubus from their blistering 2013 album Dream Calls For Blood, and a pitch-perfect cover of Dio-era Sabbath’s Falling Off The Edge Of The World.
- "Those sultry licks get weirder and weirder, until they resemble the sound of a UFO taking off." Masked metal weirdos Imperial Triumphant go straight on new album Goldstar
- "We’ve played shows on mushrooms in the past." Blood Incantation made one of 2024's trippiest, most ambitious metal albums, and we're starting to see why
The good news is that it all sounds fantastic. At this point in their career Death Angel are so flawless in their execution that it sounds like a particularly raucous studio album, just one without all the hits. It’ll still rattle your brains into stew, though.
