Consumed by blasphemic winds, bleeding profusely in the streets and denied sanctum to stew within the new-found possession of Haugesund, Norway-based black/death thrash metal duo POISONED PRIEST now reaches intensity enough to warrant a charged and ripping debut full-length album. Blurring together shades of early North American black/death metal with Scandinavian black-thrashing and punkish death stakes ‘Goat Cult Bizarre‘ ends up being a surprisingly well-fleshed yet primally cracked through exploration of demented underground canon. The level of craft applied here reveals itself as astute despite their overall brutish attack where heightened sound design and sub-genre stoked action compliment unto a sometimes frantic, always wrathful first impression.

Poisoned Priest formed in 2025 by way of guitarist, bassist, vocalist Marco and drummer Aleksander, brothers who are best known for their aggressive thrash metal band Shakma. For this project they’ve aimed for a primitive thrash and hardcore punk incensed form of 80’s black/death metal illustrating believable path between the rattling lunge of Repulsion, the thrashing mutiny of Nunslaughter and the simpler thrashing black metal of (earlier) Aura Noir as suggested points of reference/inspiration. This approach necessitates shorter ~3 minute pieces which slap past, cut their riffs in quick succession as they veer between d-beaten deathpunk and mean black/thrash movements.

You’ll get a face full of all suggested points of inspiration somewhere nearby mid-album song “Blasphemous Sacrifice” wherein sub-genre borders are yanked back to mid-to-late 80’s blurriness where it begins to make more sense why they’ve named themselves after a late 90’s Nunslaughter song. There is yet a grindcore-like element to some of these black/thrash metal coded pieces, such as “Doomsday in Paradise” and “Black Spell”, where Aleksander‘s drumming whips up closer to something like ‘Black Thrash Attack‘ while hammering out a few blasts in transition. What adheres d-beat heavy “Poisoned Priest” or the more complexly stated late album highlight “Celestial Poison” is a punkish circa ’89 Swedish death metal kick to their movement. It might all sound like cornucopic glom on paper but in practicum all of these elements are well in line with hardcore punk patternation being crucial extreme metal catalyst.

The attack set behind Poisoned Priest‘s work is the gluey vector which lubes the primal aspect of their mostly speed metal-lite structured action but they do slow down here and there within these ~33 minutes and ten songs. In between the nauseated and grinding bestial militance featured on “Cross Crusher” they slug it out per the song’s middle portion, a slow-growling groove which builds itself back up to speed via a Bolt Thrower-esque harmonized staircase. On a similar note “Doomsday in Paradise” features a dramatic intro and a few minutes of galloping heavy metal stride in its first half but overall there aren’t a ton of breaks from the general rally of the duo’s motion and, per the stylistic combine available, it’ll read somewhat samey ’til you’ve clued into the nuance spread over the course.

From the first hit of opener “Evil Incantation” I’d appreciated the overall render and balance achieved within ‘Goat Cult Bizarre‘ wherein the bass guitar’s prominence assists rather than deflates their nuclear-crisped rhythm guitar tone’s impact, snapping and bopping even harder on the gallop into “Suffer” right after. Recorded via analogue methods via Kjetil Eriksen at Studio BB4 and mastered via Jamie Elton Poisoned Priest‘s debut appears tailored to a realistic capture of this feral, nauseated but engaging style depicting the band within somewhat realistic dynamic space and without oppressing all with walled-in guitar tones. This warm and bass-capable capture lends itself well to the band’s focused presence with a level of quality that might’ve overtaken a greener group but the snarling and ever-active groove of the duo gains muscular presence instead while still allowing ample room for fill-heavy kit work and lead prone action juicing things along.

When ‘Goat Cult Bizarre‘ hit my inbox the cynical majority share of my brain was sure it’d be just another dry-bones war metal side project to blow off steam but after spending some considerable time with Poisoned Priest‘s output, and with great appreciation for the bestial thrashing beast detailed within, I have to admit is a pretty damned quality debut. The more time I’d spent chipping through the details of these ten songs the more the modestly nuanced, quick-changing tunnel of their work revealed itself and without betraying the sinister and simple rooting of their intent. Only thing I’d been left wanting more of was their exploration of d-beaten death metal nodes. A moderately high recommendation.

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