Pestapokalypse VI

Along with raging against the Catholic Church and promoting the apocalypse in the name of their ol' buddy Satan, Austria's Belphegor have always prided themselves on delivering the most brutal, lightning-fast combination of death and black metal imaginable -- over and over again, album after album. 2006's Pestapokalypse VI is yet another example of this enterprise; opening with a track that's helpfully entitled "Belphegor -- Hell's Ambassador," before unleashing a veritable deluge of similarly frenzied sonic typhoons. These invariably contain eye-popping displays of high-velocity musicianship set to suspiciously machine-like percussion, and, at their best (check out the standout pair of "Seyn Todt in Schwartz," "Pest Teufel Apokalypse"), challenge Belphegor's better-known contemporaries, such as Poland's Behemoth and Brazil's Krisiun, for tee-total speed-freak supremacy. - AMG