It's Time to Face the Doomsday

This Italian band throws speed metal, D-beat hardcore, and guttural thrash into a blender and emerges with 25 minutes of post-apocalyptic fantasy straight from the '80s, like a combination of the U.K.'s Discharge and their home country's Bulldozer. The track titles are all rooted in Road Warrior-esque dystopian sci-fi, and the vocalist barks his lyrics in a hoarse gargle not unlike Lord Humungus, the hockey-masked body builder villain of that movie's gang of S&M biker warriors. The lyrics are straight ESL, though; the chorus of the title track is a simple chant of "Rock and roll/It's time to face the doomsday." The band's sonic signifiers are all in place: the downtuned throbbing bass; the fast but caveman-simple drumming; the buzzsaw guitar riffing occasionally erupting into squiggly (but never technically complex) soloing, and of course, the occasional explosive sound effect for dramatic punctuation. The only surprise is the background vocals, which feature both male and female voices. Despite the primitivism of the songwriting, the production is crisp and clear. This band could easily have been heard on the soundtrack to an '80s Italian Mad Max/Escape from New York knockoff, something they'd almost certainly regard as a huge compliment.