It’s time to enter the Realm of Chaos - and if you don’t like Bolt Thrower, then your nightmare has just begun. Earache Records was having a sale recently so I stocked up on their “full dynamic range” remasters.
This is a transition album - while less straight up death metal than their later records, still carries over some of the hardcore / grindcore aspects (read: blast beats and weird guitar solos) from In Battle There Is No Law! But the death metal sounds are more and more present with songs like All That Remains, Lost Souls Domain, World Eater, and of course Realm of Chaos - with relentlessly brutal, war-driven drumming and heavy guitar riffs. Production, even on this “full dynamic range” version, is pretty muddy and primitive sounding, but fits the mood.
Games Workshop who created the Warhammer franchise, licensed their artwork for the original release. This license lapsed for later releases, so this reissue has different artwork - done by the same artist (I like the original artwork more). Not surprisingly, this is a Warhammer concept album: Realm of Chaos / Slaves to Darkness is Warhammer 40k book before it was a Bolt Thrower record. This is just one big nerd fest, down to the bejeweled Bolt Thrower logo that first made it appearance with this release. This also marks the first release on which the “World Eater” outro appears, which shows up on several later songs / releases as song intros. Like almost all from Bolt Thrower, an excellent record - from start to end.