Review by Michael on January 18, 2021.

A keyboard intro accompanied by crows, horse gallop, squeaking rats and thunder opens the gate to Bolsonaro's palace, er the gates of the underworld. Afterwards, the Brazilians Speedkiller rumble away on Midnight Vampire quite savagely. The singer reminds of Mystifier at "Goetia" times, the music reminds of an ugly bastard of Venom, Motörhead, old Sepultura, Sarcofago and Co. Quasi is an even more antisocial version of Midnight.

The band manages well to mix blunt thrashing with cool melodies and breaks. After the first track 'Nightspell' really picks up speed, this can then state with astonishment. Especially when Speedkiller take their foot off the gas pedal and add melodies to their songs, they sound pretty convincing. 'Shadow People' starts quite grooving in the mid-tempo area and reminds quite a bit of old Sepultura ("Schizophrenia") or Massacre at "The Second Coming" times. Alone the somewhat crooked sounding guitars create a pretty nostalgic atmosphere. The song is definitely captivating in that it doesn't just rumble along, but manages to spread atmosphere.

Speedkiller manage in the course of their EP to increase in terms of their songwriting skills after all. The pieces become much more melodic and catchy, so you can tell that the band is socializing musically more and more. 'Midnight Vampire' is quite a chunk with its catchy riffs and melodic arrangements in the middle section, 'Valley of Death' again sounds like a mixture of Venom and Motörhead and 'Circles of Blood' is undoubtedly the best song of the album, which starts off dragging but develops into a snotty song filled with cool riffs.

The production is quite successful, although it sounds a bit muffled, but I'm assuming that the band wanted it that way. I also assume that the band didn't intend to create something completely new, but rather bow to the old school masters. If you like old school 80's death thrash spiced with Venom and a pinch of Motörhead and can stand a few off-key tones in your dose of metal, you should definitely give Speedkiller an ear, you can't really go wrong.

Rating: 7.1 out of 10

Review by Krys on October 4, 2001.

I don’t think fans of Kataklysm will be surprised with the music presented on what is already their fifth album. As advertised, our Canadian death metallers, these northern-hyperblasts, returned with brutal, fast and uncompromised rage and chaos that is perfectly composed among monumental groovy riffs that leave you with nothing else but a craving to play it over and over again.

After first two songs I thought I’d go deaf and crazy. ‘Il Diavolo In Me’ and ‘Damnation Is Here’ kicked me so hard I barely stood on my feet during these displays of speed and destruction. Battering blast beats, an unmerciful wall of guitars and screams, growls and other noises of Maurizio Iacono would make me dangerously unstable if they lasted for a few more minutes. Thankfully it stopped... but what came next was beyond words. For about the next 25 minutes I was crawling on my knees banging my head and flashing horns to an unlimited number of godly riffs and then, when I was ready to stand up, I got blown by a shoot between my ears called ‘What We Endure’. Sorry, but during ‘When Time Stands Still’ I only remember a black bag closing over my head, nothing else.

“Epic (The Poetry of War)” will bury you alive with a decimated taste in your mouth caused by a total of only 40 minutes of one of the best death metal releases this year. If you were holding your savings for a special occasion... that moment has come. Buy it and never look back.

Bottom Line: Experience of a life time... get it and get knocked down.

Rating: 9 out of 10