“As a drunken teen in the 80s, it was easy to root for Razor. The fiesty Canadian speed/thrash outfit was full of piss, cheap beer, and rabid underdog enthusiasm. When I first heard their timeless cut “Evil Invaders” courtesy of a public access cable station’s metal video hour, it was love at first sound. They were rough, raw, unrefined, and pugnacious – all the things a Long Island teen aspires to be. And so a love affair was born.” Old blades and broken cycles.
“There was a time before the Bay Area thrash explosion where bands were playing fairly fast without it actually being what we now consider thrash metal. Acts like Exciter, Agent Steel, Attacker and even Razor were surely speedy and had the rudiments of thrash in place, but are now referred to as speed metal. Belgian upstarts Evil Invaders look to plant their flag right at the junction between speed and thrash, and tip their hand by using Razor’s best known ditty as their moniker.” Have you ever been screamed at by a crazy cat lady? Do you want to be?
“Let’s shake things up a bit, shall we? Since some bands have multiple albums deserving of the Retro-spective treatment, why not give those few, those happy few, a more inclusive career retrospective. First up on the block is criminally underrated, serially overlooked Canadian thrashers, Razor. To handle this piece of historical research, I’ve enlisted the other primary source here at AMG, my fellow geezer, Al Kikuras, who also grew up admiring these speedsters from the Great White North.” Old dudes talking about old music. It’s like NPR with more leather.
An extreme metal super-group from down under? Intriguing eh mates? Assaulter is a slightly blackened thrash band featuring S. Berserker, formerly of Destroyer 666 on guitar, bass and vocals and Peter Hunt, formerly of Razor of Occam on drums. For the Australian extreme metal scene that’s pretty super indeed. Boundless is their second album under this moniker and it’s a hefty slice of good old fashioned thrashing lunacy with enough black metal and Middle Eastern influences to make them stand out from the likes of Legion of the Damned and their modern thrash brethren. After never hearing of these guys before, this impressed me enough that I felt compelled to track down the debut as well and I feel on solid ground saying they’re onto something here sound wise. It’s not reinventing the blackened thrash wheel or doing anything truly revolutionary but this is still some solidly ugly, brutal stuff and well executed at that.
