In 2016 a new black metal band, called Prezir, was formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Prezir consisted of vocalist Luka Dordevic, guitarist/bass player Rory Heikkila and drummer Brian Serzynski. With that line-up Prezir released their debut EP, titled Contempt, in 2017. Nowadays Prezir, besides the three aforementioned members, also consists of guitarist Tyler Okrzesik and bass player Jerry Hauppa. With this five member line up Prezir released their successor of Contempt and debut full-length, called As Rats Devour Lions, on September the 17th via Godz Ov War Productions.
On As Rats Devour Lions, Prezir immediately starts full throttle with the title track of this album and they won’t let you rest for the next 40 minutes in this hellish rollercoaster called As Rats Devour Lions.
Something that stands out very soon are the very intense, misanthropic screams of Luka Dordevic. Not many screams go through marrow and bone that much than these. The combination of these screams with the also really nice, low grunts is perfect and brings a lot of variation to this album. The moments these two vocal styles can be heard at the same time really sounds like the gates of hell opening, like for example at the beginning of Ideologue Alchemy.
However, I get the feeling that the vocals are more up front in the mix in the title track compared to the other tracks on this album. This results in the rest of the tracks sounding a bit more gritty and dark. Anyway, both types sound very awesome.
Instrumentally the one thing standing out the most on this album are the guitars. As Rats Devour Lions is, especially for black metal standards, very guitar-driven. The regularly high guitars gives an atmospheric layer to Prezir’s black metal, but without pushing Prezir’s music into the atmospheric black metal corner.
Besides playing their riffs, guitarists Rory Heikkila and Tyler Okrzesik also get their space to show their skills regularly. Apart from adding a lot of variation to this album by their rhythm-changes, every track on As Rats Devour Lions also contains a guitar solo. For example, be sure to check Janicari or Oedipus Context.
On As Rats Devour Lions, Prezir shows a lot of variation, especially for black metal standards. This can probably be heard best in Hamatsa Death Ritual, my personal favorite track of As Rats Devour Lions.
You do listen to black metal? Be sure to not miss As Rats Devour Lions by Prezir! This very nice album by this very nice band is recommend for sure.
Hi!
I’m Tim van Velthuysen and I started DutchMetalManiac back in 2014. I’m 29 years old and I live in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Of course, I like metal, but I can also appreciate other musical styles.
In addition to DutchMetalManiac I also have a personal website on which I’ll post various things that won’t fit on DutchMetalManiac, but might be interesting for you as well. It’s in Dutch though.
