Review: Aggressive Perfector – Come Creeping Fiends

February 17, 2026

Gather ’round, ye metal thrashing madmen.

One of the things I’ve always loved about metal music is how you can never go wrong with the classics; legends like Sabbath, Priest, Maiden and Motörhead or more cult acts like Running Wild, Liege Lord and Angel Witch—despite their differences and subgenre variations into power or speed metal—have a primordial and intrinsic energy that’s just so infectious and instantly hooks you in no matter how little you’ve been listening to classic metal. Many bands from back then ’til today are always trying to tap into that fully armed and filthy essence of trad metal, which is exactly what Manchester’s Aggressive Perfector are doing.

Named after the Slayer song of the same name, Aggressive Perfector is a band that plays, in their own words, Satan’s heavy metal. They first made themselves known all the way back in 2019 with Havoc at the Midnight Hour, an excellent debut album that distills trad metal with elements of speed and thrash, and just a subtle dash of first wave black metal to keep the music gritty without losing any of the spit shine of metal classicism. Aggressive Perfector also features three members of Mancunian black metal band Wode, and if you’re familiar with that band—or read my review of their excellent 2025 album—then you can already expect some quality British steel riffs, evil atmospheres and stellar performances, and you’d be absolutely right, because after a lengthy wait, these Manchester lads are back with their sophomore LP, Come Creeping Fiends.

With such a long time between albums (in which its members’ other main band worked on two albums), one could expect Aggressive Perfector to properly refine their style further, and I’m glad to say that’s for sure the case. From the word go, Come Creeping Fiends is a lean, mean, heavy metal machine. The band has always had both an excellent understanding of what makes classic metal great and the musical chops and songwriting skills to back it up. Their greatest strength as I stated above is how they distill heavy metal and add other elements to make the music feel familiar but refreshing; moreover, the band does an excellent job at both making the music sound timeless and making this very specific sound their own. Knowing they’re also in Wode, I was also able to hear how each band influenced the other’s most recent album. The band also accomplishes that unique balance of evil grime and anthemic melody; this can best be heard in the tracks “Dead Undead,” “Like a Beast,” “Harlot’s Spell,” and “Return of the Axe,” where the band channel early Slayer with classic Iron Maiden without devolving into blind worship.

As a whole, the record is very enjoyable in that primordial way I mentioned, but I did get a nagging feeling of wanting more. Usually, I consider this a good thing, but for this record and despite enjoying it thoroughly, I also had a sensation of “that’s it?” Whether that’s because the overall fast pace and sub-40 minute length or because I was expecting more on account of my knowledge and appreciation of these guys’ other band I still can’t quite say for certain, but at least it led me to re-listen to their debut after spinning this new LP multiple times.

Overall, I do rate this record with good marks; it’s a very enjoyable record and an easy recommendation to any fan of metal music, but I still feel like that feeling of wanting more means the band aren’t just quite there yet, so my only hope is that a) their next record doesn’t take half a decade to make, and b) that by then I’ll feel blown away by what they do next, because everything they’ve done so far is still excellent.