Ramon’s assessment of the present piece of zomie-shit: with "Join The Dead" BK49 perfectly satisfy a Metalhead’s basic instincts! F. Cthulhu E.’s rather extensive assessment, which you are adviced to check if you don’t wanna be devoured by a horde of mutilated zombies: "Da fliegt einem ja die Feder aus der Matte!"… as once an infamous blasphemer of decent movie culture uttered in one of his manifestations of bad taste. Anyway… the devote Thrash Metal league had been forced to wait for this output for ages, and I personally probably was one of the most anxious zombie-disciples waiting and waiting and waiting. So was the waiting worth it? As I stated at the beginning of this hymn… "da fliegt einem ja die Feder aus der Matte!"… hell yeah, this is what I hunger for when I sit at home, thinking about whether I should get my act together and get started with my next assignment for Uni, being in need of a lame excuse not to. So what’s so cool about this release? Difficult question… how can I tackle that one? OK – first of all I like the grizzly atmosphere of this slime-festering piece of zombie-shit! I reckon these necrophilic guys really did a good job capturing their feelings when they limp across the graveyard craving for some putrid, foul cadavers. That is, the compositions sound really spooky with loads of jolly-nice Thrash solos (I love the whammy effects… only frantic Thrash veterans can play such lush shit!!!) – Klaus and Arne are in charge of this bloody string torturation and have accomplished a true Thrash-overkill tearing everything apart. Bernd, the vocalist, sounds like gargling intestines in combination with the aforementioned zombie-shit and… say… garnished with some ugly spiders and the obligatory maggots. Hmmmm… I think that describes the sound of his vocal cord maltreatment pretty well (he modulates his vocals in such a perverse way that makes you think of stalking undead armies chanting their ultimate victory.) Hmmm, Dr. Frankenfeist, the bassist, is said to be a zombie anyway… and I totally support such rumours! He’s fab and, for the first time, engages in grunting some back-ground vocals, too. Otherwise, he supports the Thrash orgies celebrated here with his malicious bass-molestation. Marc, the rumbling and gut-disgorging drum-r, shreds his kit to pieces like nobody’s business! He plays so damn fast that it almost sounds like blastbeats… but that’s not the case here… that’s something for Death Metal pussies (whooooo, that’s self-castigation… I should be careful!!!). Honestly, this weirdo does a fucking brilliant job in skin-bashing and harmony-thrashing, too. His style is quite authentic, varying, ultra-tight and precise… yeah, baby, yeah! I love the way these guys (de)compose their material… it all makes sense… the structures are clear-cut, nevertheless they always come up with nice little surprises like disturbed semi-distorted bridges (‘Morbid Funeral’… my fave!!!), bowel-squelching rhythm-alterations, gruesome-superb vocal-arrangements (-> ‘Death Is The Crown Of Creation’!!!), stinking acoustic guitar interludes (-> ‘Funeral March’!!!) and so on and so forth. This is grand Thrash Metal at its best. The production is direct, raw, brutal, natural… a pulsating mess of gory phantasmagoria!!! I think when BK 49 sat down, pondering upon how to sort out their new record they went like "Ich habe heut’ den Schalk im Nacken, d’rum lege ich den ganzen Packen!"… something like that. Sorry about these weird quotations, sorry about the dimension of this review… but these points probably come close to the essential intentions of these gore-addicted sickos. Besides, Killrich Korpserotter of Ingurgitating Oblivion has indulged in some sickening and fiendish background vocal dementia (-> ‘Join The Dead’, ‘Burried But Not Deep Enough’) on this record, too (for the sake of completion, hahaha)… what shall I say? Thrash till deeeeaaaath! Disturbed, demented, psychotic… BK 49… Metalheads being into end-80s, beginning-of-90s Thrash Metal that brings forth this insane need for speed and sheer energy (I think of bands like Exodus, Slayer, Autopsy, Death Angel…) shouldn’t hesitate and get this shit!!! And I just go like "oh my god… this record really kicks ass… I like it soooo very much, dude!" By the way… Floboter rejoices "Geil, geil, geil!" Contact this horde of stinking Thrash-zombies via: klaus.kessemeier@gmx.de, www.bk49.de