As a musician, sometimes you just want to blow off some steam with a fun, low-stakes side project, free from the genre trappings or expectations of your main gig. Karloff is a band born of such an impulse, serving as the vehicle for Graveyard Ghoul’s Tom “Tyrantör” Horrified to deliver some vintage metal/punk. The band’s last full-length, 2021’s The Appearing, was an enjoyable but unimpressive throwback to the halcyon days of punky heavy metal with a blackened twist. Now Mr. Horrified and his team storm back from the grave with another fist-swinging slab of tight, nostalgia-soaked riffage, built to crack open some beers and rattle your damn crypt to rubble. Can Karloff rise above their debut, hit harder, and unleash a truly skull-splitting dose of heavy metal warcraft?
From the moment you press “play,” it’s clear that Revered by Death is bursting with punk energy and metal spirit. Opener “A Pessimistic Soaring” wastes no time before hitting you square in the face with a simple, but effective power chord riff panned to one channel before the full rhythm section bursts in. We get a tasty, phased-out guitar lead before landing on a fun, punky verse riff, complete with blackened rasps about “a world consumed by darkness.” This sets the stage nicely for what Karloff is all about: no-nonsense, kitschy retro metal/punk with plenty of energy. Their bread-and-butter is like if a less-gaudy Midnight crashed into the punked-out thrash of early Nasty Savage and sprinkled it in a blackened layer of late-era Darkthrone. When it all comes together, the result can be oodles of fun. Karloff isn’t reinventing the wheel, but they’re definitely spilling some beer on it and decorating it with fake cobwebs and candles.
A lot of Revered by Death’s charm comes from the no-nonsense attitude on display from Karloff’s members. At their best, the riffs have the sort of quality of alcohol-fueled basement jams, with Tom Horrified providing some flavorful leads to spice things up and laying down punky power chords that find a sweet spot between uncomplicated and straight-up ignorant (“Crown Cult Fate,” “Die Wiederkehr der Dunkeleit”). H.T Steinbrecher’s drum performance is effective and workmanlike, rarely veering into blastbeat territory and keeping things classy with variations on rock beats, aided by the occasional d-beat (“Prince of Parasites”). Karloff maintains their core metal/punk sound across much of the album, but a few effective variations help to keep things fresh. “When the Flames Devour You All” is a mid-tempo, blackened banger, with swirling black metal arpeggios meeting sludgy power chords, and “Elisabetha’s Revenge” continues this thread, amping up the cinematics and dynamics to make for a memorable closer. Throughout it all, there’s a distinct sense of personality that helps maintain a sonic cohesion.
My only real complaint with Revered by Death is that some tracks aren’t quite as tightly executed as others. Karloff largely hit the mark, and none of the songs are complete stinkers, but some of the B-sides fail to get the blood pumping as effectively. At 4-minutes, “Regicide” is a tad longer than average and lingers on its main riff for its entirety, lacking a lead or meaningful variation to keep things interesting. “On Weathered Altar” is a surprising turn towards instrumental horror ambience and lands smack in the middle as an interlude that runs for about twice as long as it should. These aren’t total deal breakers, but on a short album, they feel longer than they otherwise would and distract somewhat from an otherwise solid package.
With Revered by Death, Karloff has delivered a lively batch of blackened metal/punk rippers. Nothing here will boggle your mind, but the band’s distinctive attitude and kitschy execution are plenty entertaining. The next time I want to feel like I’m in a metal party scene from an 80s horror movie, I’ll crush a beer can on my forehead, pull out my ripped jeans, gel my mullet, and throw on some of the best tracks from this latest Karloff.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Dying Victims Productions
Website: facebook.com/karloffpunk
Releases Worldwide: January 23rd, 2026
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