![Vindicator – Communal Decay [Things You Might Have Missed 2021]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/vindicator_communal-decay.jpg.webp)
“For my money, Vindicator was always underrated re-thrash, notwithstanding my concern about their collective understanding of monetary policy. Nearly 10 years later, the brothers Stown (Vic on guitars and vox and Jesse on drums) have reunited to bring us a new slab of post-Bay Area re-thrash called Communal Decay. What ensues is not surprising, but it’s teeming with old school riffing and features a short and sweet 31-minute runtime.” Did you miss it? We sure as hell did.
“Critical Defiance have learned well from their predecessors, but they are a modern thrash band with a few new thoughts, two Felipes, and a zillion riffs.” A Nameless N00b is here to regale you with a story about Chilean “retro” thrash that isn’t retro, but is definitely thrash.
When California sons Death Angel came from nowhere and dropped their classic debut The Ultra-Violence on the metal world in 1987, yours truly was blown away in a pretty major way. That album, along with a handful of others, defined my metal youth and I still listen to it regularly to this day. Sadly, the minds behind that classic release could never record its equal and the albums that followed were always somewhat of a mixed bag. Nowhere has this trend been more evident than on release number six, Relentless Retribution.
There is an interesting irony to throwback bands like White Wizzard and a lot of the other thrash throwbacks that are coming out right now, which is that at one point in time what these guys were doing was forward thinking. I know it’s hard to believe, in a world where metal is used to support stupid ideologies, backwards thinking or just generally brutish and retarded behavior, it’s hard to think of metal as progressive, but in 1980, metal was outside of the box. Bands like Iron Maiden and Def Leppard were just cutting their teeth, Lars Ulrich was busy stealing their riffs and ideas and heavy metal was fresh, young, innovative and above all rebellious and really, really interesting.
