Orthrus “Tyrants of Deception”

Orthrus is another Virginia-based duo that I had never heard of before that's now releasing material through digital label MetalHit.com, and "Tyrants of Deception" is their debut EP. Now, any band whose cited influences range from Immortal and Watain to Racer X and Skid Row (among many others) is going to get my attention right off the bat, but thankfully these two are actually fusing their diverse musical interests into a rather efficient brand of "blackened melodic death/thrash", or whatever such combination of metal styles you'd care to throw at 'em. While rooted much deeper in black metal and not yet as developed as fellow Virginia-based masters Arsis, there are certainly some comparable moments herein, thanks in large part to the band's penchant for emphatic melodies and killer little shredding guitar leads thrown around all over the place. There's a little room for improvement in terms of the tightness of the performances and the overall sound quality, but this is a very fucking promising start, especially for a duo utilizing a session drummer. It's really strange that they're able to basically come across as a black metal band, because those "80's metal" influences really do come through in the quality of the guitar playing. There's just a great sense of energy amidst the totally badass dual guitar harmonies, sleek solos, and super powerful melodies to be found throughout. Fuckin' great cover art, too. Definitely catches the eye. Very cool. I'm really looking forward to hearing more from these guys. They've got a very unique approach, and you just don't get to hear guitar work of this caliber very often anymore.

Orthrus "The Summoning"

Like the Wolfsschanze EP I wrote about last week, this one should be filtering out to eMusic, iTunes, Amazon, etc. in the coming weeks, but it's only available from the label right now. $7.20 ain't bad for a half-hour of material, and this is very promising work, so... give 'em a shot if you like what you're hearing above.

Get It

MetalHit.com