“Great Scott! Like stepping into a sepulchral time machine, Skelethal have transported us back to when Sunlight Studios was Mecca, buzz saw guitars sounded like a swarm of bees, and vocals were scraped from the depths of the grimiest gutters of hell.” More retro death arrives, unfazed by the giant shadow of Bloodbath. That’s brave.
“Sift through the empty beer bottles in the dustiest recesses of your mind and head back to 2011. On Top’s début Top Heavy hits the shelves and like its cheesy 80s era cover art, the contents reeked with the stench of immaturity. Three years on and Philideliphia’s On Top haven’t changed their leopard print cock-rocking undies!” Animal print undies are never a sign of maturity. Never.
“I know nothing about music. No, seriously: I have no clue what this stuff is all about. I know this Anselmo guy was in a metallic band: one of those which must have done something cool back in the 1990s (no, not in the noughties, as far as someone has told me) because nowadays he is allowed to make music in many bands and he even produces many others. This album is only 18 minutes long and this is great because it’s filled with noises of all sorts, but it works because I really like it and it gives me the kind of adrenaline boosts I need when I feel exhausted. This is basically an album where Mr Anselmo and a band he put together for the occasion (Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals) play the first and the third song, while another musical group called Warbeast play the even numbers.”
F.A.G. is as sick and tired of retro thrash as he is of typing out “Rumpelstiltskin.” Luckily, he likes the album or the extra F-bombs would get us tossed of the interwebs.
Municipal Waste holds the odd distinction of being one of the first bands to kick off what’s now known as ‘re-thrash.’ Back in 2003, when everyone was in their bedrooms listening to Killswitch Engage and cutting themselves, Waste ‘Em All was a breath of fresh air, and the Waste’s DRI-meets-Jeff-Spicoli approach won them a considerable following.
As I mentioned in a previous review, I like to think I value originality in music. I have little patience for bands that are merely retreads or knockoffs of other groups. So you can imagine my reaction when, a couple years ago, I stumbled on Black Future, the debut album from Arizona thrashers Vektor. The cover of that album looked like this. For those of you unaware, there is a band called Voivod. They have a logo that looks like this. “What in unholy fuck was going on here,” I thought? Is this some sort of joke? Is Vektor to Voivod what Municipal Waste is to D.R.I.? What possible motivation could a band have to do that? And more importantly, is it any good? Two years later, curiosity finally got the better of me, and I decided to check out Vektor’s newly-released follow up, Outer Isolation.
