Dawn of Azazel - Relentless

Rating: * * * *

There is no let-up on local lads Dawn of Azazel's third album, Relentless. Opening two-part track, The Art Of Seduction, is like being repeatedly shot, wound after wound being inflicted, but you're still staggering around, and just can't help but go back for more. Seductive stuff, indeed.

Recorded at Mana Studios in Florida, Relentless is a hammering and intimidating release.

The difference from the band's past records, where the songs have tended to be muddied by the uncompromising heaviness, is the album's more galvanised sound, and a refined clarity differentiating the instruments.

Relentless is hardly a clutch at the metal mainstream, it is still far too deathly and extreme for that, but there are more riffs and grooves to catch and hold on to. Majesty wields a menacing and tyrannical force with more gunshot guitar; eight-minute epic, Liquor and Lust, rattles through numerous time signature changes and a freakish number of pummelling beats as it warps and intensifies; and Sinew, Sin, Discipline - a song about Iggy Pop's life perhaps? - starts off frantic before giving way to thick gristly grooves.

For a three piece - led by singer bass player Rigel Walshe - Dawn of Azazel make an immense, empowering noise.

Scott Kara