“With the summer truly upon us here in the Americas, what better way to celebrate sun, fun, beers and beach balls than some rehashed, rethrash from Germany? Dust Bolt is another in the endless wave of rethrash that’s been slowly eroding the shores of our collective tolerance since the early days of the millennium, some of it has been good and most merely passable.”
“It wasn’t so long ago I referenced the basic unkillability of Germanic metal bands, regardless of stature and fame. As if to provide a flying buttress to my argument, along comes Paradox, a classic second tier thrash act from the 80s that are amazingly still functioning some 30 years later despite a paucity of success or notoriety.” Rock hard, rock olde.
“Name the first band that comes to mind when I say Brazil. OK, now name a second one. With some countries like Sweden, the choices are endless. The two picks made are usually based on my favorite bands or bands whose albums were most recently spun. In the case of countries like Brazil, my mind goes straight to timeless classics. Old-school Sepultura and Krisiun. But this game only works once. If you ask me again to name the first two Brazilian bands that come to mind, I will give the same answers. But what if you ask me to name a third? In that case, I’d add Nervosa to the list.” This game isn’t a lot of fun.
“Before I delve into the guts of this self-titled debut from Indiana’s Skeleton Wolf, I’d like to pose a question to our loyal readers here at Angry Metal Guy. What is your favorite drunken party metal album and/or band? You know the kind of metal that just lifts a gear and thrives with the accompaniment of alcohol.” Okay, who said Men Without Hats? You leave the hall right now!
“It’s tough to avoid feeling one’s age when all the wild, crazy bands you listened to in your youth are approaching 30 year anniversaries. This is particularly true with Death Angel. I remember seeing them open for Overkill and Slayer back in 86 and they looked like little kids on stage. I was a kid myself but they really looked like little kids. 2016 sees them dropping their 8th album after three decades in the business and while they’re older, wiser and much more grizzled, you’d hardly know it from the razor-sharp thrash contained on The Evil Divide.” With age comes anger (and back hair).
As a dumb 16 year-old I turned away from bands when the glass-shattering high notes that were a trademark of many vocalists went the way of the dinosaur, either by design or age inducing the testicles to drop. As a dumb 35 year-old, Alan Tecchio raved to me about Flotsam and Jetsam’s then new album, 2010’s The Cold. As one of my favorite metal vocalists (Hades, Non-Fiction), Alan’s word was bond, James Bond, so I picked it up. At first listen it made me turn my Fruit of the Looms into a fudge factory.” Enter the Age of Incontinence!
“I would be a goddamned liar if I said I were a longtime fan of Canadian thrashers, Mortillery—and those who commented on last year’s Unleash the Archers review can contest to this. However, after diving deep into the band’s back catalog, I can wholeheartedly admit that, in a single week’s time, I am a diehard fan of this band. And for the first time in awhile, I will not be sent to the AMG basement for my poor taste in metal or forced outside to scrape the dead armadillo carcasses hanging from the grilles of the staff’s Prius’.” We’ve actually moved your desk down there.
“I feel ashamed to admit it, but I had never heard Germany’s Assassin before grabbing their new release, Combat Cathedral. Which is sad considering they have been in the scene for some thirty years. This, however, is understandable if one looks at the band’s sporadic release schedule (which is nonexistent between 1988 and 2005).” German thrashers will even fight on holy ground!
“Arizona thrashers Vektor hold a special place in my cold black heart, as their previous album Outer Isolation was one of my very first reviews for this esteemed website. Crazy to think that that was five years ago, and crazier still is that Vektor has not released any new music in that half-decade — practically an eternity in today’s climate of short attention spans and equally short tour/record/tour cycles. Fortunately, Vektor has finally rewarded their fans’ patience with a lengthy, almost impossibly dense record called Terminal Redux.”
“It’s comforting to know Law and Order will always be in syndication on some channel somwhere and that a Big Mac will taste the same no matter where you buy it. Likewise it’s reassuring to see the big thrash acts of the 80s steadfastly refusing to go quietly into that good night. Under Attack is Destruction’s 14th full-length of Germanic thrash and as someone who was there at their humble beginnings, it’s pretty cool to see the Mad Butchers still alive and thrashing so late into their bullet-belted old age.” Nothing’s quite as infernal as infernal overkill.
