Siege Column – Darkside Legions (Recommendation)

Rather by chance I came across the duo Siege Column from New Jersey, whose rotten Death Metal immediately made waves with me. Their current album Darkside Legions is an absolute treat for anyone who wants their old school metal to be authentic and punk-heavy. If you are already enthusiastic about the rancid cover artwork, then the music is also exactly to your taste and should definitely be tested out, but beware this vomit from the States is addictive!

The intro already makes it clear what musical journey through time it will take the listener on this album. Wonderfully grotesque synthesizer sound opens the disc and directly takes you 40 years back. The following wild storm then emerges seamlessly from this, but also sounds much rawer produced and presses its stamp on the sound in terms of authenticity immediately. The dirty retro brawl inspires especially with a wonderful growling bass, which you can clearly hear out of the instrumental rage and which has stuck with me immediately.

Furthermore, the guitar on Darkside Legions pulls out all registers and saws off whatever the gear holds. The riffing is rough and aggressively fast, but is also interspersed time and time again with melodies reminiscent of distorted squealing sirens, giving Siege Column’s metal a cool metropolitan street vibe. The primitive cavernous violence that the duo emits here ignites completely and sounds as exceptionally rancid as I haven’t felt in death metal in a long time. The vocals are no exception and, thanks to their nasty deep growls laced with slight reverb, sound as if someone is consistently puking into a bucket and having fun making everyone shake in disgust. My personal highlight on the album, however, is the drumming, which does a super job especially with tinny sounding snare and cymbal-heavy blast beats.

The combination of all musical elements and influences, especially with regard to the deliberately raw production, make this long-player an absolute perennial favorite with all crusty death metal lovers. If you were to cross-reference German bands, you’d think Sacroscum and Kriegszittern had joined forces to throw together the best of their individual sounds, in this case bitterly vicious stomping parts and adrenaline-charged, frantically fast metalpunk, and shit it at the feet of the metal underground. Darkside Legions just rumbles in absolute old school garb and pushes the nastiest elements you can imagine into your skull.

Since 15th of August you can order the album via Nuclear War Now Productions, where you can choose between tape and vinyl, or just get both because of the awesome sound. If you think modern death metal is too slick and clean, no matter how dirty it wants to sell itself, you should definitely check out Siege Column, because what the duo produces on Darkside Legions is disgustingly good and clearly shows that even in 2020 the death metal of the early days can still be beaten up in an excellent and above all authentic way. Nasty, raw and sound-technically exactly the right thing to drink a few beers to again. Uuurgh!

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