Review by Felix on January 6, 2024.

Pizza Margherita is an internationally well known meal, isn’t it? Millions of pizza bakers offer it more or less worldwide. If you have good luck, it tastes wonderful and fills you up. But sometimes it just tastes wonderful or it makes you feel full. Worst case: it is a pappy, small disc which offends the palate and leaves you hungry. In this (admittedly unofficial) Margherita ranking, the new work of Funeral Winds does not deliver too little, but its taste could be better.

Hellchrist Xul, the man who runs Funeral Winds, cannot be blamed for laziness or a lack of stamina. The album follows hot on the heels of Stigmata Mali (February 2023) and the project has existed since 1991. 333 is not bad, it fills your living room with typical, generic black metal, but it leaves space for optimization in many respects. No single component sucks completely, but let’s take the vocals for example. The lonely misanthrope from the Netherlands whispers his evil wisdom without changing the pitch only a single time. No fervent screams, no grim nagging, no cries that reflect insanity or despair disturb the monotonous approach. That’s okay and somehow not okay at the same time. Xul wastes a big portion of his potential, I guess. And the guitar work? Well, I have to go a little further for that.

In my homeland, people say that the longer dog and master are together, the more they look alike. I do not know whether or not Xul has a dog (and I really have no clue whether he or the dog, if he has one, like Margherita), but I don’t think so. He presents a comparable phenomenon. His guitar work and his vocals resemble each other in an amazing manner. Stoic, mostly not very dynamic, pretty uniform – this is how his guitar sounds here. The quite dull, somewhat flat production reinforces the deficiencies of guitar and vocals. All these details do not make the album overly interesting. Instead, many songs crawl along at mid-tempo and even if our friend accelerates velocity ('Birthed By Pure Malevolence'), the mix prevents a high degree of dynamic.

Now I hear you asking: and atmosphere? What about the atmosphere, a very important ingredient for a black metal album? Here we have the next problem. 333 does not lack a basic grimness, but great atmospheric parts do not show up. Now you could say that this is due to the lack of keyboards, but that would perhaps be too simple. Perhaps our colleague Xul should simply have worked a little more intensively on the compositions. Either way, some tracks are able to catch my full attention, especially the opener and, after its meaningless intro, the closer. On the other side we find tracks like 'Cast The Gauntlet Of Doom'. The song demonstrates impressively that four minutes can become a very long time. At the end, I must say that Xul has already released stronger works. 333 is no disappointment, but it also does not enrich Funeral Wind’s discography. It comes as a supplement, no more, no less.

Rating: 6.8 out of 10

Review by Dominik on June 2, 2025.

The mid-eighties were a magical time and saw a near-explosive spread of local metal scenes, each vomiting forth their own contributions to the evolution of extreme music. While the Bay Area and the Teutonic triumvirate (Kreator, Sodom and Destruction) got lauded as if they personally ended the Cold War, Canada — despite its vast physical size — fell by the wayside and often got unfairly overlooked. Which is ironic, considering its scene offered a wildly diverse and oddly charming cast of sonic outlaws: the dimension-bending Voivod, the filth-caked Slaughter, the criminally underrated DBC, the eccentric Piledriver, the eternally stubborn Razor, and of course, Sacrifice — the band under our scalpel today.

I’ll be honest — my first contact with Sacrifice wasn’t love at first thrash riff. My story with the band is a humble one. I saw the name, thought it looked badass, picked up their debut “Torment in Fire”, listened to it, promptly shelved it, and forgot for a year it existed. Then came “Forward to Termination” — and like a cat eternally convinced that this time it will catch the red laser dot, I gave the band another shot. And for once, the cat was right. Where Sacrifice´s debut stumbled in like an intern on day one, their sophomore effort came back like a CEO with a plan.

Right from the opening minute, the debut becomes a vague blur — like trying to remember a dream you had during a power outage. Because this isn’t just a step up from their first effort — it’s a quantum leap from raw noise to righteous fury. Everything here feels sharper, more confident, more intentional. The production is a massive upgrade: crisp, biting, and tight enough to draw blood. The songwriting has matured dramatically, swapping frenzied chaos for defined structure and purpose. Sacrifice found their identity here, and they wear it like armor. Even the title track raises the philosophical question of whether a song can still be considered lyrical if it only contains two words. (No, seriously. Is that a chorus or a legal disclaimer?)

The opener is a mission statement of the band´s evolved sound, and kind of melts into “Terror Strikes” which follows with all the grace of a wrecking ball — a furious, precise banger that makes it immediately clear: Sacrifice came to collect what their debut failed to deliver. Rob Urbinati’s vocals are particularly noteworthy — a unique vocal pitch, which sounds like someone with a slight cold trying to aggressively shout at you while restraining himself in the last moment. The riffs are classic thrash, but already tinged with that unmistakable Sacrifice flavor — lean, sharp, and undeniably menacing. Scott Watts’ bass lines are supportive and, rare for the era, actually audible, while the drumming is aggressive and technical at the same time.

Unlike their American contemporaries (looking at you, Slayer and Dark Angel), Sacrifice had no issue trading speed for weight. Tracks like “Afterlife” and “Flames of Armageddon” stretch out with punishing mid-tempo sections, showing restraint without sacrificing intensity. These moments breathe, but only so they can hit harder when the tempo swings back into overdrive. Both songs are strangely elegant in their violence — like being disemboweled by a guy who also knows how to waltz.

Flip the vinyl and “The Entity” opens side B with something bordering on sophistication — gone is the murky chaos of the debut. In its place is structure, complexity, and yes — some melody. The melodic leads shine through without weakening the assault. You realize by now that Sacrifice isn’t just angrier — they’re smarter, and that’s way more dangerous and impressive, how they balance chaos with control. The album ends with “Pyrokinesis”, a two-minute sprint built for speed freaks and neck injuries. It’s the shortest, among the fastest, and arguably most memorable track here — compact, relentless, and leaving just enough breath to shout along with the chorus before the flames take over.

Is there a fly in the ointment, you ask. For all “flaw-collectors”: if there’s a weak spot, it’s “Forever Enslaved”. Still far better than anything off the debut, but by comparison, it feels more like a filler — a bit too by-the-numbers and lacking the edge its neighboring tracks wield so effortlessly. That said, it’s a minor dip in an otherwise stellar climb.

Is the album perfect? No. But is it essential thrash? Absolutely. “Forward to Termination” is the moment Sacrifice cemented their sound: razor-sharp, disciplined, and uniquely their own. Future albums would vary in quality, but the formula was set here — a mix of aggression, control, and just enough variety to keep things dangerous. That they never quite matched this peak again? A tragedy, sure. But a familiar one — just ask any band that burned too bright in ’87.

Rating: 8.9 out of 10, because this is an album that will tear your face off, in a polite Canadian way. It´ll rip your soul apart and then apologize for the mess.

Review by Felix on June 2, 2025.

Canada always had very exciting bands. Today, the separatist dudes from Quebec set the bar high, but already more than 30 years ago, the Canadians scored with very charismatic formations. Razor, Piledriver, Voivod and Exciter, great names that melt on my tongue, fabricated fantastic albums. And, of course, Sacrifice. Admittedly, their debut remained mostly ignored. In times when every week saw the release of a new soon-to-be-classic, mediocrity was not enough to enthuse the masses. Sacrifice's second album was therefore all the more amazing. "Forward to Termination" distinguishes itself from the debut in every respect. Glorious riffs, ingenious song structures, an almost perfect mix between aggression, attitude and atmosphere and, last but not least, brilliant melodies. The guys of Sacrifice showed the world and themselves that they had the potential to become a paragon in terms of highly efficient thrash metal, but the world never understood how to handle this promising situation.

Already the opening riff of the eponymous intro lends the very well-produced "Forward to Termination" a pretty cool touch, even though it does not lack of sharpness. Casual riffs are a specialty of Rob Urbinati and his crew and they occur periodically. Of course, Sacrifice are very energetic and can raise a proper storm with great ease. "Terror Strikes" with its fast and swirling lines, makes this obvious. On the other hand, the musicians also give the listener room to breathe, for example, at the beginning of the epic "Flames of Armageddon". Speaking of this monumental number, it bundles the strengths of the quartet impressively.

Almost airy mid-tempo sections introduce the listener. The song grows steadily in terms of power and density; comparatively long instrumental parts give the song an unholy aura. The band hits the brakes and an eerie intermezzo is the harbinger of another high-speed eruption that adds a straight feeling to the track. Yes, there are many twists and turns, but they do not push the song into the confusing region of incomprehensible heterogeneity. Quite the opposite, "Flames of Armageddon" appears very coherent and full of powerful ideas that match each other perfectly. (By the way, the closer of the B side, the straight, fast and short "Pyrokinesis" comes as an explicit alternative to "Flames of Armageddon".)

The entire A side of the vinyl must be described with words such as excellent or outstanding. Great drums open the door for "Afterlife" and prepare the ground for fiery guitars. "Re-Animation" is even better, a more or less bombastic beginning leads to abrasive guitars that roll over the audience without taking care of high velocity. Nevertheless, the band changes into a higher gear and increases the intensity successfully. In view of these gems of the first half, it is almost logical that the B side fights a losing battle. Don't get me wrong, its opener, for example, is quite strong. A drilling, jerky riff segues into a flowing speed part and due to further twists and turns, "The Entity" is almost on a par with the titles of the first half. But its predominantly mid-tempo approach does not provide this mega portion of energy that constitutes an important feature of the album's first half. A good, but not a titanic tune. Only "Light of the End" meets the A-side songs on an equal footing.

As indicated above, the album, which is defaced by the garish artwork, scores with a clearly defined, punchy and vehement production. This is clean thrash, free from filth but not free from aggression, vigour and robustness. Sacrifice's songs profit from this mix, because it underlines the fine, precise approach of the group. The guitars do not slay the listener with their pure massiveness. They rather impress with accuracy and sophistication. Hence follows that Sacrifice offer a full-length with a certain individuality. Indeed, "Forward to Termination" has soul and spirit. It is not the best album from North America which was released in the eighties, but it tramples a lot of other works into the dust. Guess you are not surprised about this summary. As mentioned earlier, "Made in Canada" was and is always a promising feature.

Rating: 8.7 out of 10