Band:	Pyrexia
Album:	Age Of The Wicked
Style:	Brutal death metal
Release date:	January 2007

01. The Wicked Rise
02. Prey tThe Weak
03. ITMP
04. Irony
05. Shackles Of The Mind
06. Season Of Anguish
07. Song Of Hate
08. Life Long Hate
09. Ode To Brinn
10. No Apologies

This album has one of the coolest, most intricately-crafted album covers of the recent metal discs I have acquired. With layered, demonically populated beauty like this; one tends to wonder if the musical content matches up to such an eyegasm. Well, the opening title-track Age Of The Wicked would certainly suggest so. With its swirling, chuggy Morbid Angel (Domination era) stylings, the visuals are sure to be enough for the comic book-collecting adolescent metal fan. But let us forget about that for now. The body of this work shouldn't be overlooked by its left bookend.

The next track continues in the same vein, yet drifts into a bit of the kind of pounding groove found on a Dying Fetus record. Cool. By the third track, however, it veers into a much thicker alley of beatdowns and hardcore influence, complete with harsh shouting (replacing the death growls). By the fourth track, we are fully immersed in pure early (the good stuff) deathcore. The question is, are you a multi-faceted fan of extreme music? So, if (like yours truly) you can dig the direction that Age Of The Wicked crescendos into by mid-album, appreciating the fact that the furious Azagthothian riffs, solos, and death growls do in fact return, peppered nicely atop this aggressive journey into a festering, urban, violence... then you're in good shape. However, the album cover mentioned earlier kinda seems a bit out of place when groovin' like a badass with brass-knuckles to this blend of death metal and hardcore. I'd almost expect to see something a bit more militant adorning something this rough.

Then we get a sample of an infant crying to the sounds of crackling fire, complimented by pitch-shifted devil voices. Okay, so the hellish scene on the cover can stay. Finally we just bang on our dashboards or tables and say "Dammit, I love me some demonic deathcore!!!" And there's nothing wrong with that. Death metal bands knew how to do that sound before most of today's bands were born. I guarantee the talented dudes in Pyrexia know where their influences lie.