I was aware of the band when I picked this up, since I have their second CD, although I had zero recollection of what they sounded like. Also, for some reason I was under the impression this was sideproject of a French band, which I guess is true, but I was strongly thinking it was the black metal band Lord, and it's actually one of the guys from Imperial (who, spoiler alert, I'd much rather listen to). The gasmask and naked chick aesthetics brought to mind the late '90s/early '00s French BM scene (for better or worse, I tend to associate those tropes with Battlesk'rs or maybe even Spikekult to a lesser extent), so I figured it had a good chance of sounding in that vein. Then there are the weird, humorous songtitles, which made me think it might be more experimental and non-traditional, like Diapsiquir, perhaps.
And it's neither of those at all. I was quite surprised, because when the distorted, screamy vocals kicked in, they immediately reminded me of the first Abigail album. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the music, which is very noisy, kinda primitive black/thrash. There is some actual blasting, but because of the vocal style and rawness of the music, it comes across as far more grindier and punkier than it actually is. Sometimes I can even hear some vague parallels to the more chaotic stuff on Morsüre's old Acceleration Process LP, although The End 666 never gets nearly as thrashy or mechanically fast.
The more linear parts of the CD are OK--"Saddam Rules," "Racist," and the last 2 tracks all have some decent riff ideas. Beneath it all, "Rugbymen=Bastards" has the workings of a pretty good black/thrash song, and it's no surprise it's the one song that stands out as being most like Imperial's first album.
This is an interesting case because I wouldn't say I particularly liked this album, but I don't think of it as negatively as a bad or mediocre CD because it was an interesting listening experience. Can't say if I'll ever be inclined to put it on again, but the inspired songtitles and thrashiness in the music made it worth the dollar.
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