Bolt Thrower - For Victory.
To be a Death Metal fan in the 90’s must have been like being a kid in a sweet shop made of denim and back patches…
Sure in America they had the Florida and New York scenes, Sweden had its standouts but in Britain we had some aces all of our own. Amongst these Bolt Thrower are certainly the most consistent for us. We first heard Bolt Thrower via an Earache Records sampler and it was an instant rush. The song ‘Cenotaph’ is a bludgeoning, powerful stomp with a frenetic pace and no frills riffing. This is par for the course for most of Bolt Throwers catalogue but the maturing of their sound is evident on ‘...For Victory’.
If ‘The IVth Crusade’ was the taming and tempering of the crushing and relentless power that Bolt Thrower possessed, ‘...For Victory’ was the culmination of that process with a thicker pace and slicker sound. The guitars on this absolutely kill. Baz Thomson and Gavin Ward are all business; you can see the dual BC Rich action in your mind's eye as you listen to ‘Remembrance’. Their riffs build up and bulldoze you; you can’t help but nod along!
For us, ‘...For Victory’ showcases Karl Willets’ growls the best. He varies his gruff style quite a bit on the tracks to employ gravitas where the track needs it. Jo Bench thumps the bass without surrender, the album's mix really lends itself to her tone. Andrew Whale on drums who does the business well, no nonsense double bass and snare attack, it's just like cannonfire.
Standouts have to be ‘Remembrance’, ‘For Victory’, ‘Graven Image’ and ‘Lest We Forget’. ‘For Victory’ features an outro lyric from a Laurence Binyon poem, the tracks thunder in like artillery fire, the whole album just feels so thematic and Bolt Thrower. Very much war and struggle, it's well executed and Colin Richardson’s production gives the band a grandiose sound worthy of their trench grind attack.
With the sad passing of drummer Martin Kearns, us fans will likely never see another Bolt Thrower performance which is unfortunate but albums such as this leave a legacy that speaks volumes. Rightly growled in the track ‘Forever Fallen’, “Their names-immortal, remembered forever, in memory of glory, fallen forever”.
