Review Summary: IF YOU ARE A FALSE DON'T ENTRY!
Sarcofago were a highly influential Brazilian extreme metal band, best known for their blackened thrash style they displayed on INRI. They were pretty much the epitome of everything black metal and everything 80's, musically and fashion wise. They had a big impact on the Scandinavian 90's black metal scene for their ferocious black metal attack and the makeup and leather/spikes the band members adorned on INRI's album cover, plus they are also largely credited as the main influence on the "war" or "bestial black" metal style (Blasphemy, Beherit, Conqueror/Revenge etc.)
This album to me epitomizes everything black/thrash or just extreme metal in general should be. Catchy, memorable riffs, chaotic, hostile vocals, blasting drums with a very liberal use of the snare, yet excellent songwriting with a smart variety of tempos, all make INRI a very easy album to want to savagely headbang to.
This is also an album I've always thought is a blueprint example of a metal album that takes obvious influences from other bands/albums (Sodom, Bathory, Kreator etc.) yet conducts its own style and originality enough to allow itself to become such a renowned and influential album. Extremely low, pitch shifted vocals, blast beats and the sheer aggression and barbarism Sarcofago vomited onto the metal scene with this album was pretty fresh in '87.
"Antichrist's", vocal performance on INRI has always stood out to me as a great album to take notes on and get inspired by to an aspiring extreme metal vocalist. He has an almost dynamic (if I'm allowed to use that word for an album like this) vocal performance, not staying in one register the whole time but manipulating almost distinctly different voices and becoming more aggressive throughout certain songs allowing the vocals to stay interesting. For example(s), on Satanic Lust, Antichrist is almost doing a duet with himself between the different verses, or on Nightmare he seems to shout "Nightmare" louder and more aggressively throughout the track or on Christ's Death he showcases ridiculously loud, angry screams throughout the last lyric line: "You cry for your father but he don't remember you."
All in all this is a great album I'd highly recommend to any fan of thrash or extreme metal looking for 28 minutes of ferocious, hostile, brutal metal but don't mind unintentionally hilarious, broken english lyrics about orgies with virgins and satan, hating Jesus Christ and other magnificent things. Fast, brutal, ferocious, savage and an endless amount of other adjectives you'd use to describe an extreme metal album are epitomized by INRI.
