Now, we all miss Bolt Thrower, don’t we? Even if we have Memoriam, the quality of those Bolt Thrower albums is still unreachable and the band’s influence on the scene is beyond discussion. Hail Of Bullets are no longer active and the hunger for that type of melody-driven war-themed death metal is still strong. Enter Infiltrator, a one-man project, driven by a person only known as L.P., which took me by surprise with their fantastic debut album Remnants Of Battle.
The moment An Endless March starts, it’s pure, total, unashamed Bolt Thrower worship all over, and I don’t think Infiltrator aim for originality at all. Stomping riffs over a wall-of-sound rhythm section barrage, the sight of tanks advancing onwards pictured through music. Even the vocals are very, very similar to classic Karl Willets. Fire And Steel follows in the same vein, with a remarkable sense for good hooks and melodies. Songs like In Unmarked Graves and especially the hymnal Forgotten Virtue could well be placed somewhere within the Mercenary tracklist and show the main difference between what Infiltrator and Memoriam are doing: there is not a trace of hardcore and crust punk in Remnants Of Battle, as opposed to their Willets-fronted British colleagues.
There is not a single weak song in Infiltrator’s debut, Merciless Advance even throwing in some melancholic, solemn guitar solos on top. The songs are actually so seamlessly flowing one after another, that the album seems to end all too soon. The production is just as it has to be – natural sounding and very powerful, mastering done in Dead Air Studios by Will Killingsworth. There is no use to mention each song – they are all amazing and hats down before this guy L.P. for playing the hell out of every instrument.
Remnants Of Battle is an honest appreciation of the legacy of our beloved Bolt Thrower, nothing more and nothing less, but it is created with such love, attitude and professionalism that are rarely witnessed nowadays. Yes, somebody else has invented that wheel long ago, but who cares, when Infiltrator rewarded us with one of the best death metal albums in 2024.
9/10
Remnants Of Battle will be out on vinyl on September 1st via Fucking Kill Records and you can pre-order it from HERE
