Critical Fear have released Return to Time of the Sword with a video, the first song from Dark Fate, which Hammerheart Records put out on 11 December.
Nine tracks, their third album, on CD, vinyl and digital. The previous record was the one that got them a label outside Brazil, and Hammerheart keeping them for a third is the clearest signal of how it went.
The subject is old violence rather than modern, which is a slightly unusual choice for a band from a scene that has traditionally written about the present and been specific about it. Thrash from Brazil carries an inheritance everyone can name, and most bands either lean into it or run from it.
What they play has not softened with distance. Six weeks between the first song and the album is a short campaign, which suggests a label that wants the record heard rather than trailed for half a year.