Poison The Preacher – Things I Want EP
Poison The Preacher – Things I Want EP
Seek and Strike
Release date: 17/07/26
Review by: Jon Deaux
7/10
I asked the singer what the EP was about — he said ‘obsession, ambition, and things you’d give your whole life for.’ I said ‘sounds heavy’ — he said ‘you’re not wrong, mate, I put my back out just holding the memory stick.
We’ll start with the artwork because it’s managing to do emotional damage better than most bands can across a complete back catalogue. A Daruma doll – which, if you don’t know, is a Japanese good luck charm, a reminder that you should always believe that if you persevere, you’ll succeed, and that if you put your nose to grindstone and keep your eyes on the target, you’ll get there sooner or later – has one of its eyes gouged out on the artwork for Things I Want. That’s it. That’s the whole album in one image. No “believe in yourself.” No “chase your dreams.” More like “chase your dreams until they turn around and chase you back and still continue running regardless, you bloody idiot.” It’s the most sincere mission statement a hardcore band has released this year, and it comes from a country that wasn’t invited to this party last year.
Which leads us to the second important thing before even talking about the music itself: Poison The Preacher are from Bogotá, Colombia, which isn’t necessarily the place you would expect the next big crossover thrash band to hail from. Bogotá produces coffee, gems, a whole bunch of documentaries for Netflix on the cartel wars, and, according to last year, four guys whose lives are slowly getting reposessed in real time. Vs The World was their debut release – the one which received critical acclaim and positive nods from Metal Hammer, Distorted Sound, and Dead Rhetoric alike – and now, without taking too much time between, comes the new EP – Things I Want, which is produced by Charles Toshio, apparently, a guy who works only with those bands that sound like they owe someone money.
Four songs. That’s all the EP offers, but after you listen to it, you feel like you’ve been in an actual brawl with your ambitions.
The opening track – ‘Things I Want’ – features the guest appearance from Speed, which seems to be a call of reinforcements because the band needed some backup before the madness began. As soon as it starts, it sounds like a door was kicked off its hinges in the studio and someone started shouting “CHASE YOUR DREAMS!” at you. The most aggressive TED Talk you’ll ever witness. Do you need some inspiration? You’ve got it, delivered via blast beats at an incredible pace that makes your heart beat and complain to the HR department about being mistreated.
To be honest, listening to it is quite similar to telling someone “You can do anything you set your mind to,” except this time, you have four Colombians looking like they’ve personally fought with a jaguar and not a nice life coach, and instead of the inspirational poster with mountains on it, you have a doll with one of its eyes ripped off watching you. Same message. Different approach. One of them involves drinking tea. Another one involves a spiritual whiplash.
The second track is called ‘Last Time I’ve Seen The Sun,’ and it is where the death metal parts properly kick in – uninvited, like a relative you didn’t invite to Christmas who is currently trying to eat all of your delicious cookies and is blaming you for making bad life choices. The riffs are dropping in with that deep, groaning, subterranean churn – truly the sound of ambition gone bad, curdled in the fridge, creating its own ecosystem. There’s some Latin percussion in it that keeps everything alive despite the vocals that sound like someone is trying to file an incredibly aggressive complaint with the Universe. It’s the dread you can dance to. Which is pretty specific and quite a worrying niche to be carved out, but here we are, and here they are, executing it flawlessly.
After ‘Ran Out Of Options’ turns up, it does exactly what it promises to – it is as brutal as the title suggests, like a man who has consumed eleven pints and thinks he can still do the splits. He can’t. He is going to try anyway. Someone is going to get hurt, and it’s most likely going to be him. But it’s magnificent to see this unfold safely in your kitchen, nowhere near the actual splits. Carrera sounds like he’s had the absolutely atrocious year and has decided, rather appropriately, to invoice the listener for the emotional damage. Which, honestly, is quite reasonable. I’d definitely pay for it.
And then you get to ‘Chicken Out.’ According to the video of it, the track looks like a public announcement against cowardice which is read by a man being electrocuted. It’s not even two minutes long – the same amount of time it takes you to decide whether you are going to do the brave thing or the sensible thing – and the song decides it for you by literally kicking you in the chest before you’ve even finished thinking about it. “do it or don’t,” it seems to be saying, “But stop fucking moaning about it.” Which, incidentally, is advice that I’ve never managed to follow, neither from this song nor otherwise, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.
Here’s the thing about Poison The Preacher – and I mean this as the biggest compliment I can think of – listening to this EP is like being trapped in a lift with someone who’s had the best and worst day of their entire life, and who needs to tell you about it RIGHT NOW at volume level and while gripping your shoulders. There is no small talk here. There is no soft introduction song where you get into it gradually, like a nice warm bath. You open the door, and it starts screaming at you about broken dreams and toxic ambition, and by the time you’ve figured out where the emergency exit is, it’s over, and you’re left there standing going “Well. That happened. I need to sit down.”
Four tracks. Fifteen-ish minutes. And somehow it contains more thematic ambition than most bands fit into seventy-minute concept albums with an accompanying graphic novel and a Discord server. It is crossover thrash with the death metal backbone and the hardcore punch that is marinated in just enough Latin influence that it never seems like it’s cosplaying anyone else’s genre. Toshio’s mix gives it the bite you can use to open bottles. Songwriting provides it with a pulse, not just the tempo. And the concept – obsession, ambition, the price you have to pay for wanting something badly enough to make this dream wanting you back – provides it with the motive of hurting beyond “we like playing fast.”
Colombia’s first band directly booked by Wacken and Obscene Extreme, and judging by this evidence, it will not be the last time you hear that sentence about them.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Things I Want ft Speed
02. Last Time I’ve Seen The Sun
03. Ran Out Of Options
04. Chicken Out
LINKS:
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