Barbatos is the project of Abigail member Yasuyuki. All music was written by him and the lyrics on “Rocking Metal Motherfucker” by close friends from the Japanese extreme metal scene. If you long for the ancient times of Venom and Bathory this is the CD you’re looking for. “Rocking Metal Motherfucker” delivers 15 tracks of punk-influenced eighties metal. To complete the eighties image all session recording members have adopted nicknames like “Zombie Attack” and “Princess Fist Fuck”. As I said before; the music is totally in the vein of old Venom, Bathory and even old (really old) Metallica and also has similarities with the retro hype which was going on in Scandinavia some five years ago. Back then bands like Bewitched, Nocturnal Breed and similar Venom-soundalikes were popping out of nowhere. Yasuyuki has not only looked to Venom for inspiration but has “borrowed” entire riffs; or at least it sounds like that.

I can imagine that when Barbatos plays the tent stage on a metal festival at night and you have enough to drink it will be highly enjoyable and a serious cause for banging your head.

All the tracks sound familiar at first hearing and the music is simple enough to memorize. Herein lies also the biggest problem of this release; after 3 songs you’ll get the idea, the rest is predictable and a tad boring. All tracks are played with enormous enthusiasm and fun but the songwriting skills of Yasuyuki are not memorable. His voice, sorry...VOKILLS are not strong enough to stay interesting the whole 44 minutes and he sounds like he’s on the top of his vocal abilities.

According to the bio most of Barbatos’ releases (including a bunch of EP`s and a full length) have sold out so far so there are a lot of people who will appreciate “Rocking Metal Motherfucker”. I for one rather listen to the real deal and have rediscovered Venom’s “Welcome To Hell”.