This album was originally released back in 2003 by Dark Sun on vinyl and restricted to 500 copies. I give you this info just so you can understand the level of commitment for old school metal that this guys have; and it is big, even sick if you ask me, there is nothing modern, progressive, contemporary, up-to-date here, not even the bad recording is new!
Diabolic Force is what Hellhammer used to sound like; primitive and brutal music that guided metal into developing new genres and therefore splitting the scene into what we can call today, black, death and thrash. The only problem with this is that most of the “beauty” in bands like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Venom is that they were playing as brutal as they could in a time when there was nothing heavier or faster, it doesn’t really make every single album they recorded back in the 80’s a great piece of metal, it just makes them pioneers of a whole new sound, not the best representatives of any modern metal genre, to resume here, those bands I just mention are revered today, because of their ingenuity, not because of their amazing music skills! And this is why Diabolic Force doesn’t really make any contribution, it just mimics a time of discovery, without providing some personal ideas or even a modern twist. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for old school sounding bands, but they have to write at least a couple of original songs, or not even that, just good catchy songs would do just fine… but they didn’t!
To expand a little more on this record, I might have forgotten to mention that it consist on two previous works, none of them written back in the 80’s as much as they will like us to think, the first 5 songs are from the EP Old school attack and the last 5 from a rehearsal taping back in 2002, so you can imagine how bad the sound is when the record hits track 6.
On the good site, for all those stuck in the early days of Venom glory, then this CD will definitely hit the spot, to others just get the fundamentals before you listen to this.
