Artist: Infiltration
Album: Point Blank Termination
Label: Time to Kill Records
Release Date: 09/10/2020
Country: Russia
Infiltration consists of bassists Andrey Kozlov, drummer Alexey Semyonov, guitarist Evgeny Hök and vocalist Pavel Vakhlàkov, all of whom have experience in numerous Russian extreme metal bands. The experience undoubtedly shows because the performances on Point Blank Terminaton are absolutely top-notch, and the production is clear and precise without losing any of the raw power of the riffs.
This album does not mess around, there’s no atmospheric instrumental intro to ease you in, it launches straight into a blast of guitars and drums with a disturbing vocal sample underlayed, before a raft of ferocious death-grind riffs take us through the opening track Plunged Into Decimation. The vocals throughout this record are phenomenal guttural growls that have a true intensity in their delivery.
Missing In Bodycount shifts from groovy chugs to harmonic lead guitar flurries with perfect momentum. The gunshot that opens Sniper’s Creed is almost like a starter pistol for the band to race through ripping d-beat riffs and a tri-tone harmonic passages. By this point it’s becoming obvious how much Swedish death metal has influenced Infiltrator, not so much in the buzzsaw guitar tone but in the distinct grooves that the likes of Grave and Entombed utilised; always with flashes of hardcore and punk that give a human touch to an otherwise otherworldly sound.
Infiltration aren’t afraid to really work the hooks too, as Collateral Damage proves with it’s At The Gates style opening riff. The mid-tempo pacing and ferocious chugging riffs that follow combine with the vocals to create an utterly devastating track that’s almost hypnotic in it’s aural assault. Rabid Bloodshed is a short and punchy track that tears through like Bolthrower of Napalm Death during their 90s death metal period.
The only tangent in the album, the industrial ambience of Missiles Over The Minefields, might be an interlude but it hardly gives any room to breathe. It’s a suffocatingly abrasive combination of metallic drones and sour glitches that gives another perspective on what heavy music can be. I’d love to see the band in future utilise this kind of sound more in conjunction with their death metal style rather than just as a counterpoint; perhaps in the same way Code Orange have slowly melded industrial fragments into their sludgey beatdown to create something quite groundbreaking.
The final two tracks Radiation Storm and Absolute Brutality Of Terror continue in the same death metal vein. The latter track concludes the album with a similar sample to the opening track, questioning mankind’s tendency towards war and conflict over peace and serenity.
Infiltration have thrown everything at this record, and it’s hard to find a death metal trope that they don’t include at some point during this record. The hooks might be seriously impressive, but this isn’t a record for the faint hearted. There are moments of sheer sonic violence and abrasion amongst the grooves and melo-death riffs, and the tonality of the whole record is punishingly heavy. There is plenty of creativity on show here too, and it’s evident that Infiltration are a band who can go on to improve their style even more. They have the opportunity to really develop a sound they can own, and at a time where the likes of Tomb Mold, Blood Incantation, Venom Prison, Artificial Brain and Rivers Of Nihil have shifted death metal as a genre into its most creative and unique space in years, Infiltration could well become another of this generation’s lauded death metal outfits.
Listen to and pre-order the album here:
Bandcamp (one track out so far):
Listen to the full album here:
