Tsorer — Return to Sodom

There are times when you can put a cd into the player, listen to the first few notes, and you just smile.  That’s the reaction that happened upon hearing Tsorer.  The Israeli band (the duo of Tom D. and Avner) has been around since 2006.  Return to Sodom is the first full length release (not that there’s any other releases on their website) from Black Hate Productions.

This is raw black metal done achingly well.  Of course influences like Bathory, Darkthrone and even Celtic Frost can be heard, and they certainly embrace those influences.  Yet this is something of Tsorers own creation.  Slow riffy guitars, painful vocals, blasting drums it’s all here.

When things start off like the “Misantrope” which features punk-ish drumming and Slayer like guitar solos, it’s a good indication that the songs that follow will be just as furious.  To an extent they are, but Tsorer ups the ante by mixing up the tempos.  There’s blistering blasts on “Sodom” and perfect slow, doom-like pounding on “Old”.  Guitars and bass (yes, you can hear the bass!) also run the gamut from galloping, to riffy, to all out tremolo insane speed.  They even throw in a few trippier elements as on “Messiah” with a short spoken word piece.  Or the too short, “End” which has an industrial ambience and metallic noise added to the mix.  Vocals are apropos for the music, a blend of the fore mentioned Darkthrone and Celtic Frost-like rasp.

To add to this is that Tsorer are excellent musicians.  Every instrument is not only played well, but the way the songs were produced you can actually hear each instrument without losing any of the ferocity the band emits.  A surprisingly exceptional debut from a band that certainly understands the foundation of black metal without being caught up in image