Deathwards – Realms of Sin
Release Date: 30th October 2026
Label: Sepulchral Voice
Bandcamp
Genre: Thrash Metal, Death Metal.
FFO: Slayer, early Sepultura, Vulcano, Sarcófago, early Death, Avulsed, Hadez, Sindrome, Death Yell, Kreator, early Sodom, Suicidal Tendencies, Pentagram (Chile), Possessed.
Review By: Malte Brigge
I’m basically at the point where if I see that a band is from Chile, it doesn’t matter what style they play, I’m going to check it out. Whatever is going on over there—I don’t know if it’s the food, the coastline, or just something hardbaked into the culture—it’s working. So when thrashers Deathwards sent us a promo for their debut Realms of Sin, I grabbed my baseball bat, beat my way through the staff room and tied Aeons Burning into a Scorpion Deathlock to get my hands on it. Had I ever heard of Deathwards before? Nope. Did that matter? No, because Chile. So was it worth risking (the) life and limb (of others) to be among the first to glimpse what this decade-old act is finally unleashing on the world?
To begin, you’ve got to understand what makes this record special in 2026. There is no hiding the 1987 on Deathwards’ style. I don’t just mean the songwriting influence of Possession, early Sepultura, Death, and Slayer (the band is unabashed about this; half these songs could be mistaken for Reign in Blood outtakes), but the raw dynamics of the sound itself. Realms of Sin has the aesthetic of a high-quality demo recorded in J.G. Studios still pungent with Sarcófago’s beer and sweat stains. It has a crisp, deep mix rarely heard anymore. The playing is rusty and unvarnished; throughout the album, most notably on From Bread to Stone (Gluttony) and The Worms of Malebolge (Fraud), you can actually hear the playing—what I mean is that you can hear the guitarists struggling to nail a tricky note or keep up with a double-time riff, and it’s gloriously live. It sounds like they recorded the songs in one take: there’s no quantizing, no pitch-shifting, nothing is clipped. It’s an old-school tone, but so refreshing. Deathwards sounds like a band playing their songs rather than one slouched over a laptop piecing songs together.
It helps that the songs are fun to listen to. Riff after riff slashes and stabs through the speakers as The Magus barks you through the various circles of Dante’s hell, which, if you hadn’t noticed from the titles, is the core theme. His voice occasionally reaches death-adjacent growls and demonlust plosions, but mostly he stays in an Araya/Muir range touched by the Becerra Blade. There’s enough echo to wake deep-dwelling cave bats, but little enough variation he almost becomes background noise. We are here for the riffs, after all, and between The Magus and The Usurper, there’s plenty. Whether they’re machine-gunning power chords, palm-muting arpeggiated licks, or running up and down the fretboard with Possessed tremolos, there’s not a dull moment. They rarely repeat established ideas verbatim; rather, the songs molt and exuviate, sloughing off old forms in favor of new developments, the kind of songwriting from a band who doesn’t want to get tired of playing their own songs.
Boredom isn’t possible with Realms of Sin; behind the slice-n-dice riffs, the Penance’s drumming can hold down necessary grooves but is much more comfortable just flaying the shit out of the skins. It’s like he’s in a race with a burning house to get all his rolls, fills, skank beats, d-beats, ride taps, and kick pedalling done in time. The Europeans and North Americans could learn something from South American drum production, because the thick snap of the Penance’s snare is one of the most satisfying things your ear can do. The Condemned One is there to ease the bludgeoning with a stormy bass that keeps the album warm and weighty. His grim speed attack at the end of The Sore Weight of Repentance (Violence) will strain your forearms just listening to it. He’s clearly studied his CliffsNotes.
It’s hard to pick favorite moments on an album this refreshing. The outro riff of Gold in the Abyss (Greed)? the bass takeover on From Bread to Stone (Gluttony)? the dangling guitars on Sullen Blood (Wrath)? the trem run on Worms of Malebolge (Fraud)? What a blessing not to have to choose. If this is what hell sounds like, then what Dante saw wasn’t torture but moshing, which explains why his Inferno is arranged in increasingly violent circle pits. This is a mosh album, start to finish, one meant to electrify an audience and make it impossible to stand still. What makes Realms of Sin so perfect is how imperfect it is, and I wish more bands had as much faith in their sound as Deathwards does.
(3.5 / 5)
