“I’d be lying if War Curse’s new offering didn’t take me aback. It is so different from anything they’ve done before that it took me a few spins to grasp. Like many bands before them, Confession will either be a stroke of genius or their weakest album.” Curse of evolution.
“Like me, you probably haven’t heard of North Carolina’s Children of the Reptile. But we are going to fix that today. Because you should listen to them and their third LP, Heavy Is the Head. Despite the endless possibilities of poking fun at that album title, I’ve had too much fun with the record for petty dick jokes. Though back-catalog gems like ‘Good Times Orc,’ ‘Master of the Forge,’ ‘Cro-Magnon Combat,’ and ‘Halls of the Skeleton Lord’ would suggest Children of the Reptile are another budding power metal outfit, they are not.” Snake no mistake.
“Since Steel‘s clammy, hairy hand forced me to write for this illustrious establishment, I’ve noticed a trend. The trend is the inconsistency of thrash releases. It’s like the entire genre gets together as one unit of foul-mouthed dinosaurs, balding dads, and pizza-hungry horror enthusiasts to decide when to release albums. They sit around chugging Mylanta, Steel Reserve, and Truly, talking their trade and comparing solos. After evaluating the recorded material at this annual meeting, they’ll make a decision. The decision this year? No releases. Who made the decision? No one really knows. At this point, everyone’s puking from overdoing it on alcohol and stomach acid. At next year’s meeting, the verdict will flip. Or, so everyone hopes.” Thrash rebels.
![Ars Moriendi – La solitude du pieux scélérat [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/627020-768x768.jpg)
“I may drive like a twenty-year-old, dad-joke like a forty-year-old, but I’m as fit as a flabby sixty-year-old and as spry as a seventy-year-old. I have two cups of coffee and have diarrhea for the rest of the day and, two beers later, I’m drunk. Yet, with Angry Metal Age comes Angry Metal Wisdom. As well as a lot of annual visits from old friends to the old-people home. This year, visits came from Darkthrone, Kampfar, Rimfrost, Sorxe, Stormhammer, Via Vengeance, War Curse, Reign of Fury, Second to Sun, and others. One visit I was most excited about was from Ars Moriendi.” Olde habits.
“Name another site out there with writers hiding behind silly monikers whom you know better than your best friends. Name a site you dared to lean on, pouring your heart out in the comments, getting positive and uplifting responses when you needed them most. Name a site you’ve spent as much time debating, loving, and sharing music as you have on AMG. You can’t.” Truth telling.
![Reign of Fury – Exorcise Reality [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Reign-of-Fury-Exorcise-Reality-01.jpg)
“I can’t believe it’s been four years since I first listened to Reign of Fury. For those of you that don’t remember, or weren’t alive during that time, Reign of Fury’s 2015 release, Death Be Thy Shepherd, was so good it landed atop my year-end list. As I read over the words I wrote long ago, three things are clear. First, I’m still a shitty writer. Second, boy, a lot has changed in what seemed like a perfect life for ole Grier. Third, Exorcise Reality is no Death Be Thy Shepherd, Part Deux.” Reality bites.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, being the child of the thrash era, I love when a song turns on end and a chugging lick crescendos into a neck-snapping attack. But, I also miss the days when a band could write a thrash classic that wasn’t waiting around for that mid-song savagery. War Curse also remember those good ol’ days. That’s why they gave us Eradication.” War Curse (and Pepperidge Farms remember).
“While I like many of the rethrash bands currently in the scene (Warbringer, Power Trip, Reign of Fury—to name a few), few bands have the energy and in-your-face attitude of the original scene. Spain’s Crisix don’t appear to write the hefty stuff, with smirks on their faces and whoopie cushions under their asses, but these guys can fuck shit up. Two years ago, these sonsabitches fell from the sky and roundhouse-kicked me in the nuts. And now they’re back to sac-tap me once more with Against the Odds.” Tapping the (main) vein.
“There’re are few bands in the world that you can look at, or listen to, and say, ‘yeah, those dudes fucking know the road.’ And, while there aren’t many that would trump the almighty Motörhead, there’re those that share the punkish gonads, the old-school blues, and the electrifying energy of Lemmy & Co. Against the Grain know the road and dominate the Midwest.” The road is a grainy place.
“Twenty-seventeen is turning out to be the year of thrash. On top of Kreator and Overkill, there’re new releases from Havok, Warbringer, Power Trip and, later this year, War Curse and Reign of Fury. In between all that, we also get a contribution from Australia’s own Harlott.” Thrash now comes with an extra “T” for added toughness.
