The Phantom - Transylvanian Nightmare [Red]

Two flags: the band is Phantom, not The Phantom, and this is a four-track EP rather than a full album - both worth correcting in the listing.

Transylvanian Nightmare is four tracks of vampyric speed metal from Guadalajara's Phantom, pressed on red vinyl that suits the subject matter exactly.

Phantom started in 2021 as something the four of them did purely for fun, which is usually the sign of a band worth paying attention to. Three demos, a split with four likeminded groups, and a debut full-length in Handed to Execution followed in quick succession, and this EP landed in 2024. Their lineage is the good kind of old: first-wave black metal's occult theatre, Venom's filth, Bathory's cold, early Slayer's speed, played with none of the retro polish that ruins so many bands working this seam. When High Roller picked them up, the back catalogue finally reached the people who had been hunting for it.

The title track opens at a gallop and never once lets up, riffs sharpened to a point and vocals shrieked from somewhere behind a crypt door. From the Abyss is the meanest thing here, all tremolo and menace, while Epitaph is the genuine surprise, a classical guitar instrumental that proves these four can actually play. Raging Pyres closes the EP by simply going faster than anything preceding it.

Short, vicious, and entirely committed to the bit. Red vinyl was never in question.