Review by Carl on March 23, 2021.

You gotta hand it to Indemnity, cramming some 30 years of thrash and hardcore into a 21 minute album, that's no mean feat.

To describe it in short: Indemnity are a thrash metal band with a heavy influence of both old school and newer school hardcore punk, but to put it like that, one would sell the band short. While the vocals remind me of mid to late 90's hardcore/metal acts like Pro-Pain or Skinlab (you could basically fill in any post 1994 hardcore/thrash band here), their music is somewhat harder to define. It is not exactly your basic Slayer, Exodus or Kreator copy band, although these influences certainly show up throughout, but the band mix in different styles into the thrash metal frame of their music. There's crust and old school hardcore punk, but also Bay Area thrash, New York hardcore, crossover and even some 90's groove thrash, it all makes an appearance.

Throughout the whole album I hear bands like M.O.D., Sacred Reich, Vio-lence, Backfire!, Torque, 25 ta Life, early Slayer, Minor Threat, ... and those are just the ones that come to mind right now! The band has dropped it all into a blender and made their own, original cocktail of different metal and hardcore styles, without it coming across as forced. It has groovy mid tempo parts, thrashing polka beats, gang vocals, blast beats, blazing guitar leads, d-beats, ... Within the space of one song the band can seamlessly switch from Exodus style thrash riffing to blistering hardcore punk like Discharge and back again on the turn of a dime, without it becoming a mess. And it must be noted that even with all those different influences, this albums remains consistent throughout. Perhaps not all that they put in here is to my personal liking, but the fact is that there aren't a lot of bands that can give the thrash genre a spin of their own, but Indemnity does it to good effect.

This is by far one of the most varied thrash albums I have ever heard, and with it's excellent production and punkish energy it doesn't look like it's going to get boring anytime soon. There's just so much happening here it takes some time to let it all sink in, but it sure is worth the effort. I certainly appreciate their eclectic approach to the thrash genre, though I can also imagine that the usual patch-jacket crowd might have some trouble with Indemnity, because they have a lot more to offer than your basic Exodus clone band. Give them a chance, I'd say, they totally deserve it.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 4, 2021.

The metal world knows three different types of albums. Concept albums, where the songs are thematically connected, albums whose songs stand on their own and finally such works, where you can not recognize a concept in any way. They are just garbage and often Sabaton is written on them. But let's leave that and concentrate on Helstar. Back in 1989, they invented the fourth variation of a metal album. Nosferatu is a bastard of the first two alternatives, because the first half deals with the somewhat silly theme of "vampires", while the tracks of the second half deal with everything except vampires. By the way, Helstar were also very inventive in other respects and thus won the prize for the most wrong German title ever. 'Von Am Lebem Desto Strum' makes exactly zero comma zero sense. While the first four words exist after all (more or less...), "Strum" must be based on a vampiric inspiration. Anyway, Rainbow can't keep up with their equally clumsy "Vielleicht Das Nachster Zeit".

Rainbow is also a name that comes to mind when I hear the rather light-footed, inappropriately melodic instrumental 'Perseverance And Desperation'. The bright sounding guitars intoxicate themselves with their own harmonies until colleague Frank Ferreira intervenes with a miniature drum solo. But it's already too late, the piece puts an abrupt end behind the strong beginning of the disc. Helstar convince after the intro with three temperamental, powerful and straightforward up-tempo songs that lack no feature which traditionally conceived pieces should have. For instance, the choruses go well into the ear and especially that of 'Baptized In Blood' remains immediately in the memory. In contrast, the concept part of the album closes very mediocre with the semi-balladic, relatively bulky 'The Curse Has Passed Away'. At least, we got through the vampire songs without being bitten in the neck.

Unfortunately, Helstar only sporadically find back to the form of the first songs in the remaining ones as well. 'Swirling Madness' with its somewhat distorted chorus sounds fresh and snappy. 'Benediction' presents a promising riff at the beginning, but it gets lost in the course of the little intoxicating piece. Now it is undisputed that James Rivera is a good singer. He hits all the notes perfectly on Nosferatu as well. He can actually sing and not just scream, but that alone doesn't significantly enhance the songs either. Especially since his vocal charisma does not exceed a solid level. Thus it comes that the well, but not particularly pressure-full produced disc holds light and shadow and to the latter belong in my opinion also the again and again classically inspired guitar runs. A few additional, crunchy riffs would have been preferable to me and would have pushed the power metal work in a somewhat more thrashy direction. At least, in the minimalist booklet Helstar called for a boycott of good-looking music. That had to be said after all. Just like "Strum".

Rating: 6.2 out of 10

Review by Felix on November 4, 2021.

The metal world knows three different types of albums. Concept albums, where the songs are thematically connected, albums whose songs stand on their own and finally such works, where you can not recognize a concept in any way. They are just garbage and often Sabaton is written on them. But let's leave that and concentrate on Helstar. Back in 1989, they invented the fourth variation of a metal album. Nosferatu is a bastard of the first two alternatives, because the first half deals with the somewhat silly theme of "vampires", while the tracks of the second half deal with everything except vampires. By the way, Helstar were also very inventive in other respects and thus won the prize for the most wrong German title ever. 'Von Am Lebem Desto Strum' makes exactly zero comma zero sense. While the first four words exist after all (more or less...), "Strum" must be based on a vampiric inspiration. Anyway, Rainbow can't keep up with their equally clumsy "Vielleicht Das Nachster Zeit".

Rainbow is also a name that comes to mind when I hear the rather light-footed, inappropriately melodic instrumental 'Perseverance And Desperation'. The bright sounding guitars intoxicate themselves with their own harmonies until colleague Frank Ferreira intervenes with a miniature drum solo. But it's already too late, the piece puts an abrupt end behind the strong beginning of the disc. Helstar convince after the intro with three temperamental, powerful and straightforward up-tempo songs that lack no feature which traditionally conceived pieces should have. For instance, the choruses go well into the ear and especially that of 'Baptized In Blood' remains immediately in the memory. In contrast, the concept part of the album closes very mediocre with the semi-balladic, relatively bulky 'The Curse Has Passed Away'. At least, we got through the vampire songs without being bitten in the neck.

Unfortunately, Helstar only sporadically find back to the form of the first songs in the remaining ones as well. 'Swirling Madness' with its somewhat distorted chorus sounds fresh and snappy. 'Benediction' presents a promising riff at the beginning, but it gets lost in the course of the little intoxicating piece. Now it is undisputed that James Rivera is a good singer. He hits all the notes perfectly on Nosferatu as well. He can actually sing and not just scream, but that alone doesn't significantly enhance the songs either. Especially since his vocal charisma does not exceed a solid level. Thus it comes that the well, but not particularly pressure-full produced disc holds light and shadow and to the latter belong in my opinion also the again and again classically inspired guitar runs. A few additional, crunchy riffs would have been preferable to me and would have pushed the power metal work in a somewhat more thrashy direction. At least, in the minimalist booklet Helstar called for a boycott of good-looking music. That had to be said after all. Just like "Strum".

Rating: 6.2 out of 10