Morbid Saint

Morbid Saint – Swallowed by Hell Review

Morbid Saint – Swallowed by Hell Review

“Once upon a time, there was a little-known thrash act out of Wisconsin called Morbid Saint. They were nasty, savage, and uncompromising. They also had trouble getting attention from labels or recording a proper album. Instead of a finished studio product, they released their 1988 demo titled Spectrums of Death in 1990. It might not have been a polished recording, but it showcased their unrelenting aggression and warmongering fury. It went on to become an underground darling and its stature has grown over time. They attempted a follow-up outing in 1991-92 but once again never made it past the demo stage. That demo wasn’t made public until 2015, and by then it was little but a historical footnote. This record of frustrated ambitions is why it was a shock to see a promo from Morbid Saint in the crust muck of the sump.” Full Spectrum assault.

Raider – Trial by Chaos Review

Raider – Trial by Chaos Review

“After producing one of 2022’s greatest pieces of album art, Mitchell Nolte is back with a vengeance. The fantasy scene that graces Raider’s Trial by Chaos depicts a lone warrior battling a sea of dragons, snakes, and cephalopods attacking from every direction. Violent, claustrophobic, and extravagant, it’s a perfect match for the music. Canada’s Raider specializes in an explosive brand of death-thrash that keeps the dial turned to 11 at all times.” The April wind is a Raider.

Xentrix – Seven Words Review

Xentrix – Seven Words Review

Xentrix may not be a household name, but it should be. The band’s magnum opus For Whose Advantage? had the misfortune of coming out in 1990, a banner year for thrash. It wasn’t as impressive as Megadeth’s Rust in Peace, as seething as Forbidden’s Twisted into Form, as aggressive as Morbid Saint’s Spectrum of Death, as memorable as Artillery’s By Inheritance, or as blasphemous as Exhorder’s Slaughter in the Vatican. Still, For Whose Advantage? packed a punch, with berserk riffcraft that went straight for the jugular.” Age and experience advantage.

Battlegrave – Cavernous Depths Review

Battlegrave – Cavernous Depths Review

“Perhaps the most awesome thing about Battlegrave is the way that they combine their genre influences together. Many bands blend genres in such a way as to make it difficult to pinpoint where one ends and another begins. Not so with Battlegrave. Cavernous Depths sounds like Morbid Saint, Demolition Hammer, and Oxygen Destroyer were each run across a table saw and had their constituent parts randomly and brutally sewn together.” Snitches and death thrash fans get stitches.

Protector – Excessive Outburst of Depravity Review

Protector – Excessive Outburst of Depravity Review

“The same week I meet Flames for the very first time I’m also tasked with reviewing Germany’s long-running thrash/death act Protector. Formed way the Hell back in 1986, they’ve been seasoning the obese for decades with a style that grabs equally from thrash and proto-death metal. If you imagine Morbid Saint smashed into a thick romesco with Kryptos and Sodom, you have the basic idea of what Protector is aiming for.” Protector or tormentor?

Oxygen Destroyer – Sinister Monstrosities Spawned by the Unfathomable Ignorance of Humankind Review

Oxygen Destroyer – Sinister Monstrosities Spawned by the Unfathomable Ignorance of Humankind Review

Oxygen Destroyer is devoted to spreading the terrible gospel of the Kaiju — giant monsters who lay waste to cities, and often, each other — and their music matches that mission perfectly. Blending death metal and thrash metal in their many forms, the band paints with a varied influence palette, ranging from the deathened thrash of Morbid Saint, to the thrashened death of Morbid Angel, to the groovy violence of Demolition Hammer.” R U morbid?

Obsolete – Animate//Isolate Review

Obsolete – Animate//Isolate Review

“I’ve spent much of this year listening to Obituary and Mortician. Both are death metal, but death metal is a wide field and you can’t mistake either band’s sound for the other’s. To address this, we put bands into subgenres within a subgenre – Floridian death metal, for instance. This is nice because I don’t want to sift through a bunch of Entombed clones to find something like Monstrosity. What about when our subgenres within subgenres cease to be useful to describe a sound? Then we get stuff like slam, which is brutal death metal played a specific way – a subgenre of a subgenre within a subgenre. If you’re thinking that Obsolete’s debut Animate//Isolate will lead me down a sub-sub-sub-genre rabbit hole, go ahead and give yourself an executive producer credit.” Old tech.

Hazzerd – Delirium Review

Hazzerd – Delirium Review

“While I relish the disgusting lurch and crawl of Asphyx and Autopsy, I’ve never been able to shake my love of blistering, thrashing metal. Reign in Blood kicked down the door, and through that door has charged classics like Slaughter’s Strappado, MercilessThe Awakening, and Morbid Priest’s Spectrum of Death into my iron heart and album collection. I can’t get enough of the stuff, but after listening to …And Justice for All again, I rediscovered my enjoyment of that vein of thrash as well – Metallica was my gateway into metal, after all. Hazzerd is a relatively young Canadian band who play this second type of thrash.” Speed Hazzerds ahead.

Oath of Cruelty – Summary Execution at Dawn Review

Oath of Cruelty – Summary Execution at Dawn Review

Oath of Cruelty are a name I’ve been familiar with for a while even if their output thus far has been extremely limited. Formed in 2010, this Texas trio play a combination of death and thrash metal that first came to my attention with 2014’s lean and mean Hellish Decimation EP. Consisting of just two tracks, Decimation seemed to show Cruelty had a mastery of their style, with the EP’s five minute runtime being filled with absolutely fierce riffing and crunchy rhythmic breaks that made it impossible not to bang your head.” Obsessed by cruelty.

Quayde LaHüe – Love out of Darkness Review

Quayde LaHüe – Love out of Darkness Review

“I was saddened to learn that by skipping the first day of Eliminator Fest, I’d missed a performance by the band that I find myself covering today: Olympia, Washington’s Quayde LaHüe. After spending time with their debut album Love out of Darkness, I’m vowing to catch them live at some point, because these guys and gal kick some serious olde school ass.” Love in a dark place.