Description
Truest of the true, Germany’s CRUEL FORCE burst onto the scene in 2008 with the Into the Crypts… demo. While many have tried to emulate the ancient German (black)thrash sound, CRUEL FORCE brimmed with an authenticity that could not be denied, as well as songwriting that added to that noble tradition rather than lazily picking at its corpse. Their two successive albums, 2010’s The Rise of Satanic Might and 2011’s Under the Sign of the Moon, made CRUEL FORCE a certifiably CULT name in the international metal underground. Sadly, the band fell into a hiatus following that second album, but returned reinvigorated with the comeback 7″ EP Across the Styx in 2022 and are ready to make up for lost time with their imminent third album, Dawn of the Axe, for new label home SHADOW KINGDOM.
Originally released during the summer of 2011, CRUEL FORCE’s Under the Sign of the Moon was as sweltering as the weather. Whilst keeping the same sound as their debut album, The Rise of Satanic Might, just a year prior – fierce and frenzied blackthrash in the old German tradition, with the emphasis on BLACK – here on CRUEL FORCE’s second LP did the quartet get even dirtier, digging back to equally early Venom and Motörhead at times. The gallop was insistent and ominous, and sounded like the proverbial Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…if they knelt before the ancient gods of Sodom, Kreator, and Destruction! And whereas that no-less-considerable debut featured isolated leads (in other words: no backing rhythm guitar), guitarist Slaughter filled out the sound, which, alongside vocalist Carnivore’s gruffer delivery here, made everything more thundering. In other words, MANDATORY listening now and forever for thrash diehards, and at long last reissued on a worldwide scale!
