Despite being considered a poor man’s Slayer in some circles, Ringworm’s brand of hardcore thrash remains an incendiary proposition.
There hasn’t been much alteration over 27-odd years and seven albums, just a refinement of their powder keg approach to excising guitars and slicing and dicing riffs while vocalist James ‘Human Furnace’ Bulloch does inhuman and unholy things to, and with, his vocal cords in describing the dark side of arcane religions and occult activities.
From start to finish, heads are put down and there’s no letup until the quintet runs into the concluding brick wall of Temple Of The Wolves. The lack of dynamics – aside from the occasional half-time middle-eight and Shades Of Blue, there’s very little deviation from the initial pace – may be a sticking point, but with riffing this incisively potent and economically skin-shredding, not to mention brief but killer solos, like in Brotherhood Of The Midnight Sun, what is there to complain about? Not a whole lot.
