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Blog Categories Review Beltfed Weapon - Darkened Demise EP - Reviewed By Metal Digest!

Beltfed Weapon - Darkened Demise EP - Reviewed By Metal Digest! Saturday August 19 2023, 4:39 PM

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Beltfed Weapon - Darkened Demise EP - Reviewed By Metal Digest ! Check it out here at this link: https://metal-digest.com/2023/06/29/beltfed-weapon-darkened-demise-ep/

Go to your local library and take out the book labelled: ‘how to be more underground in the death/thrash world’. Can’t find it? That’s right, it’s so underground that only two copies were ever made and they’re both owned by the author. Those of us who have seen this hallowed book will find that under ‘B’ there is an entry for Beltfed Weapon, the project of local Seattle legend Franko Hetzel and this year has the death/thrash band returning with their latest EP ‘Darkened Demise’.

What the listener gets here with this EP is some good, strong death/thrash delivered in just the way we like. There is a huge old-school feel here and as with every Beltfed Weapon release, Hetzel brings with him a plethora of guests to the table such as Jeff Loomis, Kragen Lum and Jason Viebrooks. Yet, the most prominent of these is the late, great Tim Aymar who, no matter what he did, always managed to bring a touch of class to the table and it is no surprise that because of this, any fan of Control Denied or Pharoah will be frothing at the mouth. Therefore, through tracks such as ‘Accept Your Insanity’ and ‘Eternal Fire’, Beltfed Weapon dance the toxic waltz that will turn the head of fans of Havok, Exodus and particularly Annihilator where at times, you’d convince yourself that Aymar was Jeff Waters in disguise.

Alright, in a all seriousness, there isn’t anything here that hasn’t been done before and everything is pretty much as expected. But realistically, who fucking cares when the thrash is this good? Best thing to do, crank up the volume and enjoy every second of the EP’s 24 minutes! - Metal Digest

Release Date: June 25th, 2023

FFO: Iced Earth, Morbid Angel, Exodus

Location: Seattle, WA

Featuring an all star cast of musicians:

Frank Hetzel (guitar, songwriter)
Jeff Loomis - ( Arch Enemy ) (lead guitar)
Kragen Lum ( Exodus / Heathen ) (lead guitar)
Tim Aymar ( Control Denied / Pharaoh ) (vocals)
Steve Tucker ( Morbid Angel ) (vocals)
J.D. DeServio ( Black Label Society ) (bass)
Jason Viebrooks ( Exhorder ) (bass)
Dagna Silesia (bass)
Bryan Newberry ( Into Eternity ) (drums)

After releasing their third EP, the highly acclaimed Raining Plague, in 2015, Seattle metal band Beltfed Weapon had a rough time locking down dedicated musicians. So, band founder and guitarist Frank Hetzel took matters into his own hands. Instead of wasting time auditioning new musicians, he wrote a batch of songs on his own and then recruited an all-star lineup to work with for the new EP, Darkened Demise.

A two-decade music business veteran, Hetzel has met and befriended some of the greatest artists from various subgenres of metal over the years. And once they heard the new Beltfed Weapon songs, members from bands as diverse as Morbid Angel, Exhorder, Into Eternity, Arch Enemy, Black Label Society, Testament, and Heathen were excited to help. Working with talented guest musicians wasn’t a completely novel concept for Hetzel, who played with Testament bassist Steve DiGiorgio, former Marduk drummer Fredrik Widigs, and Arch Enemy guitarist Jeff Loomis when he needed-some in-studio help for Raining Plague. But for Darkened Demise, Hetzel knew what he wanted from the start, and who he wanted to work with, and couldn’t be happier with the five new songs. “It’s definitely the best thing I’ve ever done,” he says.

The first Beltfed Weapon track in five years, “Headfirst Into Hell,” is a multidimensional assault that features clean vocals by Tim Aymar of Control Denied (the last band to include Death founder Chuck Schuldiner). The song is both rousing and roiling, rife with thrash riffs, double- bass drumming, and prog/power metal rhythms; Loomis and Heathen’s Kragen Lum added guitar solos.

Loomis also played on the piledriving “Accept Your Insanity,” which is rounded out by Black Label Society bassist J.D. DeServio, and Into Eternity drummer Bryan Newberry. The title track of the EP is an apocalyptic thrash-death number that features Morbid Angel’s Steve Tucker, whose feral growls contrast with Aymar’s more melodic singing (Tucker performs on two of the five songs and Aymar commands the other three).

Darkened Demise is both skull-crushing and musically diverse. More than that, it’s a labor of love – a project Hetzel pursued by himself with a bunch of friends and guests he invited along for the ride.

“It has been a long process, but it has been very therapeutic and rewarding,” he concludes. “To have all these people on it that I’ve been listening to for decades is incredible. If we sell records, great, but I feel great just knowing how it all came together and how well it came out.”

Check out the new video for 'Eternal Fire' that premiered on Decibel !