‘Featuring former Sepultura guitarist Jairo “Tormentor” Guedz‘! screams the blurb accompanying the new album from Brazilian assault unit Troops of Doom… Quite why this should be important when (a) that band haven’t come up with much worth listening to in the last God knows how many years, and (b) Antichrist Reborn really doesn’t sound like anything that band has done in, ooh, nearly forty years is anyone’s guess, but, there you go… Troops Of Doom seem to be well… doomed to suffer from guilt by association before even a note has been struck in anger!

Which is a shame, because Guedz and guitar accomplice Marcelo Vasco come up with some nice – keelar, in fact – riffs on AR. Unfortunately most of them have already been used by Slayer (Deserters From Paradise in particular seems to have been constructed from Hell Awaits offcuts), or maybe Kreator in their youthful prime, but that’s by the bye in the final washup. If you can, as I have, put the cynicism behind you and just concentrate on the more visceral pleasures this album offers, then a fine time is up for grabs for one and all.

Closing track Preachers Paradox, for instance, offers a particularly stimulating six and a half minutes of heads down, no-nonsense mindless thrashing, with vocalist Alex Kafer growling an’ gurning in fine old style whilst the band churn out the doom-laden filth with grim-faced resolution. There’s no doubting the steely-eyed resolve of these blokes, even if original thoughts are as rare as rocking horse shit chez ToD…

Make no mistake, Guedz and his band of not so merry men are deadly serious about what they do; and what they do, they do well – very well in fact – but it’s up to you to decide whether forty minutes of rehashed thrills and spills are worth the price of admission when there is so much genuinely exciting, original music demanding your attention right now.


Antichrist Reborn releases on April 15th.