“If an outbreak of evil’s what you’re after, raise your iron fist to this slab of sleazy, down and dirty Sodom worship! Not only is Slutvomit’s homage to mid-80’s era metal a throwback to the blackened speed metal served up by early Sodom and a few other bands of the era, but their band name could almost have been poached direct from Obsessed by Cruelty.” It’s easy to love shameless Sodom worship, because Sodom is so damn loveable! But can it charm the fickle Mistress known as Madam X?
“Re-thrashers just keep coming through the floorboards and as with roaches, for every one you see, hundreds more lurk just out of sight. Ultra-Violence is a new bug and they hail from Italy of all places. Their Privilege to Overcome debut doesn’t completely reinvent the thrash wheel, but it does offer a dizzyingly schizoid blend of modern thrash, second wave Bay Area style thrash like Defiance and Faith or Fear, Germanic thrash, crossover hardcore like D.R.I. and modern stuff like Machine Head.” If that doesn’t sound like a thick re-thrash stew, nothing does! Join Steel Druhm as he examines if Ultra-Violence has what it takes to kick the requisite amount of buttcheek.
“I couldn’t help it, I had to rescue this review from Mr. Fisting Himself and his mad, imperious rule of giving every rethrash album a 2.0. Why did I have to spare Havok from the dubious rating thrash heap you ask? Because these feisty youngsters strike me as the true vanguard of the rethrash movement and where they go, so goes the retro wave. While Havok brings little in the way of musical innovation to a static, fairly stale style, they’ve staved off tedium on prior albums like Time is Up through sheer youthful exuberance, grit and fancy musicianship.” Steel Druhm may be able to save Havok from Mr. Fisting, but can he save them from themselves?
“FKÜ might be the oldest old-school thrash band you’ve never heard of. As the story goes, the original lineup of Freddy Krueger’s Ünderwear (amazing name, BTW) formed in Sweden way back in 1987, influenced heavily by S.O.D. With no recorded output, they went on hiatus for over a decade before finally re-forming, shortening their name, and releasing their debut Metal Moshing Mad in 1999. As the title implies, 4 – Rise of the Mosh Mongers is their 4th album.” Mr. Fisting has imposed some draconian and inflexible rules for how he rates re-thrash albums. Can FKÜ escape the swirling vortex created by his maddening and confounding need to demand originality from a genre that’s very existent depends on non-originality? Tune in and find out!
“One of the stranger parts of American culture is the phenomena of the Civil War reenactment. For those of you unfamiliar with this, it is exactly what it sounds like: History buffs and other geeks dress in 1860’s-era clothing, meet at a public place, and painstakingly recreate some of our nation’s most infamous battles. As fun as this might be to watch, the reenactments are somewhat predictable, because every single time (with one exception) the outcome is exactly the same. If you can imagine the futility of witnessing the same battle over and over again, fully knowing how it will end, then you are beginning to understand how difficult it is to review retro thrash albums.” And that brings us to the dulcet tones of Greek thrashers Exarsis. Mr. Fisting thinks these guys just made one of the better Bay Area thrash records of 1989, except that they’re from Greece and it’s 2013. That poses a problem.
“There’s no better example of a hard-working, determined, but ultimately second tier act than Saxon. They were part of the original NWoBHM and have been churning out traditional metal albums since 1979. They’ve had classic platters like Wheels of Steel and Denim and Leather and a wealth of classic songs (“Crusader” is so damn good). Still, most metal fans wouldn’t put them on as high a pedestal as Maiden or Priest in the Pantheon of Metal Kings (ov Steel).” So does Sacrifice finally earn Saxon that much sought after ticket to the top of the pops? Maybe we should manage expectations…
“As both the original vocalist for Testament and Paul Baloff’s (R.I.P.) replacement in Exodus, Steve “Zetro” Souza was certainly a big player in the original Bay Area thrash explosion. After leaving and rejoining Exodus several times and churning out a few Dublin Death Patrol albums with Chuck Billy, Zetro is finally in a band of his own and back to rethrash us like it’s 1986 all over again.” Want a bonus Exodus album? What about a really good Exodus album? Here it is. You’re welcome.
So it looks like Dave Lombardo is out of Slayer. Again. It seems he was dismissed from the band after investigating their finances and wondering why he was not getting paid. Interestingly, Slayer frontman Tom Araya was also part of this fact-finding mission, yet he was allowed to keep his job. While there are many layers to this, to me it reeks of a double standard for drummers, who are increasingly treated as an easily replaced commodity among heavy bands. Which leads me to the dark and mysterious past of Lombardo’s current replacement, Mr. Jon Dette.
Cast your minds back to a time when metal music was not cool. Nay, indeed, a time when metal was anathema to all that was considered to be “chic” and “in.” A time when your favorite bands were actually encouraged by the music industry to play slower, cut their hair, and write sensitive lyrics about their childhoods. Yes, this unfortunately really happened.
Our new semi-irregular feature “90s Metal Weirdness” focuses on albums released between 1992 and 2001 and which we all probably would rather forget. But in the service of publicly shaming the musicians involved, we have pushed forward.
The fiddles, the flutes, the thrash-polka: what more could you meade?
