"Fast beats and pummeling riffs from the arsehole of the world." Now that's a tagline you can get behind. Prisoner of War is a death and thrash metal band out of New Zealand. Iron Bonehead has opened the floodgates with their new album, Rot, as of May 2nd which is reportedly Influenced by such classics as Altars of Madness, Consuming Impulse, and Mental Funeral. Prisoner of War also deal exclusively with the "brutal and historically accurate realities of a battle." War metal.

Blink and you may miss it, cuz Rot MFing fast. Opening track "Slow and Painful Death By Mustard Gas" is aptly described by its title save for the first word. This is some of the most aggressive, confrontational death thrash I have come across in some time. I suppose in many ways the content and delivery share some conceptual ideas with Slayer ("Angel of Death" anyone?). It's just that with Prisoner of War, you get a much bassier production and more extreme outcome.

Speaking of the bass, it rumbles inside your head turning your head into a spray paint can. That's the sound of your brain clanking around inside there...or what's left of it. D-beats and catchy hooks tear through song after song, buried in a particualrly grimy distortion and utter vocal defecation. Tracks like "Evil Sky" sometimes take a tresachorous turn down doomier passages, but it's never long before we recieve fresh whiplash from another pace change.

At roughly 22 minutes, it feels like an entire hour was simply recorded at the wrong bpm. So much happens within such a short amount of time as to leave you feeling confused and disoriented by the end. I mean this all in a good way, of course. Rot may not be an album I'll be talking about for years on end, but it's still one of the heaviest things to cross my path in some time. And better yet, it traverses this extremity with an alarming amount of catchiness that would otherwise seem mutally exclusive. If you don't believe the hype I'm shilling, just give the track below a listen. Remember, you have been warned.