Artist: Sexmag
Country: Poland
Label: Destruktion Records / Dying Victims Productions
Formats: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2025
Over the past few years Sexmag has been growing into what you might call the “underground next big thing”. Not only just backed up by a good string of labels and releases, if you are into reading old school fanzines you might have noticed that basically every self-respecting fanzine has covered the band in one of the last issues. Besides the quality of the music, the band’s name and image have added much to their rise to underground fame. Not even so much because “sex sells”, but all the more because of their overall commitment to 60’s horror and 80’s Heavy Metal. That is something that continues to find fertile ground.
After a few short-players, ‘Sexorcyzm’ is the band’s debut album that, to everyone’s delight, isn’t straying an inch from the band’s original path. The formula of combining the best of bands like Kat, Turbo, Destruction, Exorcist (Poland), Sextrash and Master’s Hammer has largely left untouched. Sexmag still goes for the thin lines between the Extreme Metal genres that we define as Black Metal, Heavy Metal, Speed Metal and Thrash Metal. Back in the 80’s, those genres were a little less stringent and it all flowed together more as a fluid and organic whole. So it is under that constellation that you have to place Sexmag. With the production values in which ‘Sexorcyzm’ is presented it is hard not to get carried away to those bygone days in which Extreme Metal wasn’t just about down tuning or thick layers of extra studio guitars. The thing that makes ‘Sexorcyzm’ so captivating is its authenticity, it harkens back to pre-‘Reign In Blood’ Slayer and especially the first few Destruction records: a thin and guitar-oriented production that highlights the riffs and leads as well as the overall charming ramshackle song structures showing the band’s unbridled and catchy energy.
Despite the tried-and-tested recipe hasn’t changed, there’s but one thing that stands out when comparing ‘Sexorcyzm’ to its predecessors. This new album sees the band reshuffling a few of its trademark elements, in the process stronger emphasizing their Heavy Metal background. That’s especially evident in the more melodic riffs and an increasing amount of leads and solo’s. That might go a little at the expense of the previously more prominent proto-Black Metal component, but gives the overall result a much more balanced and diverse character. Still, the ones who came to the band for their Master’s Hammer/Törr-tinged blackness can rest assured. There’s quite a few songs that bear this much stronger Heavy Metal-based identity, but none of the songs are free of the Sexmag’s blueprint mid-80’s Black Metal, especially evident in the staccato and up-beat rhythms and barking vocals that makes their return in basically every song.
After three successful short players as well as their talked-about live appearances, with ‘Sexorcyzm’ Sexmag completely lives up to all expectations. That in itself is a rare and commendable achievement, but how great is it for fans of the genre to be able to embrace a band that holds all the values on which this music is built so highly and delivers everything they live for?
