Written by Kep
Terminal Nation – Echoes of the Devil’s Den
> Hardcore/death metal
> Arkansas, US
> Releasing May 3
> 20 Buck Spin
The era of hardcore mixed with death metal is already in full swing and has been for a few years. It feels like bands playing that particular mashup are everywhere; hell, you could half-joke that the entire Maggot Stomp roster qualifies on some level and be mostly right. But head and shoulders above them all are Terminal Nation, both musically and lyrically.
Rabidly anti-fascist, violently anti-cop, viciously anti-capitalist, and unapologetic as fuck about all of it, Terminal Nation are in the upper echelon of openly political metal. Their ability to lace the venom of righteous hate into every riff is right up there with acts like Napalm Death. It’s immediate and immensely satisfying shit, hardcore-forward brutality with groove and power, callouts and breakdowns and blastbeats and some of the toughest vocals you’ll ever hear from frontman Stan Liszewski. Terminal Nation has been doing the damn thing for a decade now, though their real breakthrough in the scene came with the 2020 release of Holocene Extinction, their debut full-length and first collaboration with 20 Buck Spin.
Echoes of the Devil’s Den is the natural continuation of what was started in 2014 and what we heard in 2020 (and then again in 2022 on their killer The Ruination of Imperialism split with Kruelty). It’s riffs that hit like a 20lb sledgehammer to the body armor of a riot cop, engineered by producer Ryan Bram to sound enormous and destructive—you can feel every bass drum kick in your goddamn chest, and the guitars are chunky with a wicked edge—with lyrics scathing enough to peel the flesh from your body, delivered in throat-shredding fashion. Echoes is a goddamn megaton bomb, and we’ve never needed one more.
So yeah, this album kicks large amounts of ass. It takes all the anger and frustration of living under capitalism’s wretched money-grubbing reign and channels it into 12 tracks and 40 minutes of pure flamethrower. You’ve likely already heard the singles, so you know how hard that breakdown in “Written by the Victor” hits—“If history is written by the victor / Make no mistake / I will / Sever every tongue / Cut off every hand / Your legacy / It dies with me”—with Todd Jones of Nails joining the fray over a murderously heavy groove. And you’ve already experienced the vigorous metalcore-influenced riff that opens “Merchants of Bloodshed”, the huge slammy stomps, and the surprising turn into melody when Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach shows up. But what you don’t know yet is how many other immensely satisfying and irresistibly headbangable moments reside in this record.
Every where you look you’ll hear Terminal Nation doing the hardcore/death metal mashup better than the rest, whether by just knocking the classic shit out of the park or by trying something a little outside of the box and knocking that out too. There’s the titanic slow wrecking ball of a main riff in “The Spikes Under the Bridge”, and the caustic spite in Liszewski’s voice as he spits out “They pick the easy target / Punishing being alive / With twisted steel / And unforgiving cement”. There’s the big boy swing of that burly main riff in “Bullet for a Stone”, laid back and wide enough to level city blocks as it rolls heavily forward. I chuckled at the sing-song taunting tone of the title words in “Cemetery of Imposters”, then got the wind knocked out of me by its unforgettable brash vocal feature from K. Kennedy of Sex Prisoner over a classic bruising hardcore riff. Even “Embers of Humanity”, functionally an interlude, brings the goods, with a somber slow build and emotive harmonized solos that remind of similar calm-ish moments from thrash titans like Metallica.
I think Echoes of the Devil’s Den is far more than just a portrait of a moment in sociopolitical time. But truly, this is the album we need right now, this week in particular even. Third track “No Reform (New Age Slave Patrol)” might be the anti-cop anthem of the century and is going to be everywhere on Friday when the album drops. It’s a three-minute take-no-prisoners ripper, alternating rolling death metal churn with bludgeoning hardcore punch, all vitriol and piss and vinegar, no fucking around. And of course, a metric ton of moments to go wild in the pit to: “There is no reform for / The murder of children / No amount of training / Curbs a killer’s appetite”. This whole record is pissed off catharsis, and “No Reform” is its shining moment, the track that will stick in everyone’s memory. I crave the experience of screaming the repeated breakdown lyrics—“Fuck every cop that’s ever fucking lived”—in a rabid crowd at a live show.
THE BOTTOM LINE
It’s no surprise that a new Terminal Nation album hits hard, but don’t let that expectation distract you from the sheer power and excellence contained in Echoes of the Devil’s Den. It’s nothing short of exceptional, a missile of roiling vitriol and violence aimed at the evil in our society, as effective and satisfying musically as it is lyrically cathartic. It’s one of my favorite albums of the year so far and I can’t recommend it highly enough.