HOGS OUT FOR PHANTOM’s TYRANTS OF WRATH
By Scott “Hoggin Out” Belzer
Castles. Dracula. Foggy-ass graveyards. Driving a classic, chopper-style motorcycle (a “hog,”(vroom vroom vs. oink oink or yank yank)) top speed across a barren desert while your rotting, putrid skin hangs onto your skull for dear life.
These are all images Phantom’s 2025 speed metal masterpiece, Tyrants of Wrath, conjures for listeners – and that’s all within the first three minutes. Thanks to breakneck rhythms, riffs that shred faster than Sonic and Usain Bolt’s lovechild and a genuine appreciation for horror fantasy, these Mexican menaces prove you truly can have all-things-metal if you’re a true believer.
Don’t get me wrong, dear metalheads, speed/thrash is front and center on Tyrants of Wrath. Guitarists Juan Carlos García Gutiérrez (“JC Necrohex”) and Harel Mortem sling riff after riff after riff at a fart-and-you-won’t-hear-three-of-them pace. While there are soaring solos that imitate the metal gods of old, (a few crack the moonlit sky with lightning in “Thunderbeast”) these lads pay more homage to Razor’s Dave Carlo and Midnight’s Athenar than Eddie Van Halen or some prog metal guitarist’s attempt at melody. The end result is more rock’n’roll than symphony, more cohesion than lead. There’s no cheese to be found on this pizza. There’s a reverence for the speed metal legends that came beforehand instead.
That reverence carries on through Necrohex’s vocals, which range from your classic shouts and occasional high-end shrieks to a gothic baritone. In some songs, we’ll hear the thrash-goblin vocals we’ve come to know and love—“Violent Invasion,” “The Tower of Seth,”—while in others we’ll hear a melodic zombie drone that would fit right into a haze-filled graveyard ( “Nimbus” ). In Transylvania. At the witching hour. Under a full moon. Spooky shit.
Bassist Raír Tavizón and drummer J. P. Alatorre bring F1-speed rhythms into this mad scientist’s concoction, but keep it interesting with punk and mid-tempo changes. The solos at the beginning and middle of “Dance of the Spiders” feel like they could fit into any 80s punk 7-inch (provided you could wipe off the punk-house goo/grease/grime and find a working record player). Intros, outros, and haunted interludes straight out of a decrepit castle also make their way onto Tyrants of Wrath to maintain the atmosphere and keep the vibes decrepit. From a listener’s perspective, these elements aren’t just fun, but also even out the rockin’ (often ROCKET) pace of the record. There’s an ongoing horror-tinged ying to a beer drinkin’, cig smokin’, neon lit bar yang.
Clocking in at 48 minutes you’d think Tyrants of Wrath would overstay its welcome, but thanks to the aforementioned ingredients, this record is palatable re-spinnable. By the end, you’re begging Phantom for more. I chalk this up to the record’s sense of balance; nothing overpowers anything else, and there’s a classic cohesion here that’s reminiscent of genre giants. These kids know how to make metal, and dish it out to the begging baby birds we are. I can’t wait to put on my vampire cape, punch myself in the face for full (genuine) corpse effect, and hop on my steel-laden HOG to get to the nearest Phantom show. See you there, fuckers.
Ride YOUR hog to Boggs Social & Supply on Saturday, March 28 as Phantom, Void, Heraklieon and Cemetery Filth seek to transform the cozy home bar into a devastating hurricane.
