### Bolt Thrower: Those once loyal

#### 14/11/05 || Lord K Philipson

What I always look forward to when it comes to Bolt Thrower and a new album is that opening riff of the whole album. Anyone remember “The IVth crusade” god damn it all to fucken hell!? That’s some classic riffage right there. To say that I was let down when “At first light” starts off would be a downright fucken super-lie. From that moment I knew that the fucken Bolt’s just decided to create their quite possibly best album to date. The second thing that completely put me on my arse was the bass-sound. Not only is the bass handled by one of the coolest fuckers in the history of death metal, namely Jo Bench, but the damn sound people… THE FUCKEN SOUND! I even had to ask her for the exact equipment used, just so I know what to use for my future recordings. The bass is up-front, it’s massive and I love the fucken edge it gives the music. Finally an album by a band that understands how a bass should sound (the first one was our own “HDCE” by The Project Hate, and you know this). And finally it’s hearable as fuck on a Bolt Thrower album.

Another thing that really completes this album (except for the usual awesome’n‘groovy as fuck riffing) is Mr. Willetts’ vocals. He’s back where he belongs and we can only hope he stays around this time coz BT is not a 100% BT without his vocal chords complimenting the music. I was never a huge fan of the Ingram-thing in BT, yet they managed to put out a good album with him, but this is different. This is what BT is about. Karl is the only one I wanna see and hear in Bolt Thrower when it come to vocals.

And I thought I would manage to complete this review without mentioning Karl. Fuck it.

This disc is everything we love about Bolt Thrower, and a tad more of it. I have said it before, there’s not one single band on this earth that sounds like The Bolt’s. Their sound is unique. Where most bands of today focus on who’s the fastest blaster, BT concentrates on excellent songwriting, immense fucken groove, memorable hooks and passages. Pretty much everything I wish to find in a band. BT knows their formula better than anyone and decides to sticks to it. There’s ofcourse nothing revolutionary going on in the songs, mid-tempo death metal played by the best of them. It’s all BT, ladies. And I salute them for staying the same, record after record, just perfecting stuff as time goes along. Not many bands do this. And I will always love Bolt Thrower for it.

There’s not one single weak track during this sonic assault. And I fucken respect bands who manage to do compose material like that. You would think that BT would be a tired old band by now seeing their combined age is something like 600 years, but “Those once loyal” says different. There’s a nerve about this album that was lacking on “HVP”. This is a huge step forward from that album and that piece was nothing close to bad either.

You want classic riffs?

Check out the riff at 1:30 in “Last stand of humanity”. Or the mentioned opening riff of “At first light”. The opening of “The killchain” gives me a huge smile of my face, I wonder why… The jump-da-fuck-up riff at 0:30 into this song makes me wanna tear shit up. 1:40 into “Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)” makes me not wanna tear shit up, it makes me wanna fucken kill shit. For a long, long time. I could go on like this forever. This is a package stuffed with insanely groovy shit and brutality.

I’m fully aware of the fact that I’m probably one of the very few who’s not into BT’s earlier material up to “The IVth crusade”, but you know I’m fucken correct when I say that BT’s probably never sounded better that what they do on “Those once loyal”.

8,5 panzer divisions out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2005
- Label: Metal Blade Records
- Website: www.boltthrower.com
- Band
- Barry Thomson: guitars
- Gavin Ward: guitars
- Karl Willetts: vocals
- Jo Bench: bass
- Martin Kearns: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. At First Light
- 02. Entrenched
- 03. The Killchain
- 04. Granite Wall
- 05. Those Once Loyal
- 06. Anti-Tank (Dead Armour)
- 07. Last Stand of Humanity
- 08. Salvo