Album Reviews : Herratik – Wrath-Divine

If you’ve heard this bands previous material, when they played under the name Abortus, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. Its twelve tracks of riff heavy, thrash/death metal (and an intro track… and an acoustic track). The final four tracks are rerecordings of older material, and you can tell from listening to those that Herratik haven’t really deviated from their usual formula and style for this album.

That’s not a bad thing though, because Herratik know how to do this well. This album is chock-full of heavy, yet somewhat catchy riffs, technical bass work, fantastic solos and very tight drumming. Although, unlike many similar-styled bands, the vocals here have a lot of melody, and while they aren’t the best growls around, vocalist Jack does a fantastic job of balancing heaviness and catchiness. Songs like Forget Me Father and Wrath-Divine have very catchy choruses, which almost follow more of a rock style, without losing the heavy sound.

There’s a fair bit of variety on here, which I didn’t really notice on the first listen. Much of the album is based around heavy, solid riffing but it regularly changes in pace and style. Above Your Lies is slower and more melodic; Wrath-Divine has some great little sections that wouldn’t be out of place on a traditional metal album; and then there’s the mixture of thrash riffs, a few of which remind me largely of Testament’s thrashier work. Acoustic track New Era does a great job of creating a bit of a break in the album, with its natural-sounding guitars and ambient backing (has a similar feel to Agalloch’s recent White EP), and while it does come late on the album, it makes the final few tracks sound even heavier. These last four tracks, which as I mentioned are rerecording of older material, are just as solid as the rest of album which is great. If they weren’t listed as bonus tracks, you’d think they were just part of the album.

Production isn’t anything to write home about, but it’s not bad enough to bring the album down. It could potentially sound a tad more powerful with better production, and the vocals are perhaps a tad too clear and stand out a lot from the music. Only minor issues, but they’d make the overall album sound better. Other than that, this is a great release and I highly recommend it to thrash and death fans alike. 7/10

Band: Herratik
Album: Wrath-Divine
Year: 2006
Genre: Thrash
Label: Copro Records
Origin: New South Wales, Australia
http://www.myspace.com/herratiktheband

Track Listing:
1. Intro: The Holy Plan
2. I Heretic
3. Dance On Your Grave
4. Above Your Lies <- reviewers choice
5. New Gods
6. Wrath-Divine
7. X
8. Forget Me Father
9. New Era
10. Forked Tongue
11. Take You Down*
12. Sadist-Fy*
13. Process of Elimination*
14. Re-Pray*
* rerecordings of Abortus era material