“No More Torture may be the debut album from Seattle’s Vanishment, but the music contained within is not the product of genre n00bs. The band’s members are grizzled metal and rock veterans, and they’ve chosen a pretty straightforward thrash style for this project. Promo materials cite Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Metallica as Vanishment’s source material, and after spending time with the album, it’s hard to refute that list.” Speed merchants.
“Do you ever have that feeling of listening to an album and feeling that it’s somehow better than you’re giving it credit for? Or, as GardensTale put it to me, the feeling that “I’m probably just not good enough for the album”? That’s how I felt about the second full-length from Vancouver’s Neck of the Woods, until about 4pm today.” You’re good enough and people like you.
“Other than being a young blood on the review team here, I’m a young blood in general, meaning that I popped onto this rock just around the time death metal was in its youthful heyday, and was introduced to it late, more or less in its modern form, without any experience with its gritty adolescent years. For the most part, the 90s sound is a relic for me, fossil evidence of the gradual evolution of death metal. Warfather seems determined to re-educate me. The throwback quartet, headed by ex-Morbid Angel bassist/vocalist Steve Tucker, has crept onto my radar with a name too ridiculous to pass by and a sound 90s enough to warrant a presidential apology to the American people.” Kronos is young and in need of guidance. Can Warfather provide the parental authority he needs or are they just a bad influence?
“For every Voivod album that teaches us not to judge a book by its (horrendously poorly made) cover, there are dozens of other albums with laughably bad artwork that also contain laughably bad music. This was somewhat the case with The Kennedy Veil’s debut disc, which hid uninteresting death metal behind a photoshop abomination. They can’t be faulted for this, seeing as the it was self-released, but it’s nice to know this time around they’ve put forth a properly constructed, though again clichéd face for themselves.” Sometimes we make note of album artwork, but Kronos really takes that to a new level of visual obsession. Fortunately, he also reviews the music… eventually.
