“Have you ever wondered what Lanfear would sound like if they played old-school thrash metal? How about if Atlantean Kodex had listened more to Exodus than Epicus Doomicus Metallicus? If you said yes to both those questions, then you are Steel Druhm and I claim my five pounds.” Re-thrash makes people wonder about many things.
“One of the bigger musical surprises of 2012 was the rebirth of ’80s cult thrash heroes Exumer. Those thrashards [thrashtards? – AMG] released the minor thrash classic Possessed by Fire way back in ’86 and things went downhill from there, forcing them to go dark for 25 long years before reforming and dropping Fire and Damnation on an unsuspecting metalverse. The nostalgia factor was high on that one and I couldn’t help but enjoy hearing from these old fiends once again. It certainly wasn’t an essential piece of thrash, but it was a good start after a quarter century of inactivity, and now a mere three years later we get The Raging Tides. So what was Exumer up to the past three years?” How can you not click through with an intro like that!?
“I know this will be a shocker to many, but it appears that Dr. Grier’s second review of 2016 is a thrashy one. This time, however, it’s not a by-the-numbers release of straightforward Metallica, Slayer, or Exodus brown-nosing.” The Doctor and his thrash are like conjoined twins and just as cranky.
“The Raleigh-based power trio of Suppressive Fire plays a brand of fun and slightly blackened thrash that skips the pizza entirely. Culling mainly from the “devil metal” of Nunslaughter, Nocturnal Breed’s Fields of Rot, and producer Joel Grind’s main outfit Toxic Holocaust, this is a modern take on thrash, infused with more extreme elements but still being rooted in the ethos of the harsher end of the classics spectrum.” So, can this debut differentiate itself in the early days of 2016?
“California’s own technical thrash metallers, are a band who does everything I love in metal. They write fast songs, packed with frantic energy and rarely pushing the 5 minute mark. Their guitar work is tight, melodic, and classically influenced. Ride Forth, which drops on January 8th from Prosthetic Records, is an album that goes from zero to 90 in a split second and never drops in intensity as it pounds through nine tracks of palm-muted, staccato licks, arpeggios galore, and non-stop double-kick ass kicking (all while doing it for the Horde!).” Well, that sounds promising. But everyone knows that things are never this simple with Angry Metal Guy.
“The arrival of 2016 finds the tides turning for Varg, now signed to Napalm Records. Das Ende aller Lügen (The End of All Lies) is here and with it Varg presents their latest direction—one encouraging impulsivity, unpredictability, revelry and brute force. All packaged in nice bright red war paint.” Madam X is here to tell you about the creepy German dogs she dragged home. Who’s not interested in that?
“Thirty years past its prime, Gravewürm’s songwriting and musical delivery continues to leave a lot to be desired, and after twenty-five years of existence and ten full-lengths, I ask myself the same question before every Gravewürm release: does Gravewürm have anything new—anything at all—to offer in their newest output?” That’s a really good question.
“In recent months, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend of bands putting out hours worth of new music as one album. While Iron Maiden has already been notorious for giving you your money’s worth since the creation of the compact disc, other acts are taking that idea and running wild with it. I’ve always been a proponent of the idea that less is more [How can that be? – Yngwie]. Apparently, Brazil’s Bode Preto (or “Black Goat” in Portuguese) believes in the same philosophy. Mystic Massacre, their second album, is a hair shy of thirty minutes long. A little goes a long way… or is Mr. Malmsteen right?”
![Deathhammer – Evil Power [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Deathhammer_Evil-Power-768x768.jpg)
“If you woke up this morning and realized you wanted to party like it’s 1983-1985 but think the throwback scene is ripe for a vicious culling of posers, have Deathhammer got a record for you: it’s called Evil Power and it’s quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in 2015. Ridiculous = trve.
![Battlecross – Rise to Power [Things You Might Have Missed 2015]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Battlecross_Rise-to-Power-768x768.jpg)
“It comes of no surprise to those of you restlessly commenting on EVERY FUCKING review, YMIO, and TYMHM article that I got truly thrashed this year. Being a product of the Bay-Area heyday, I haven’t had much fun with any of the modern thrash output storming the iTunes racks in the last decade or so. But 2015 gave me a few monsters I will love for eons to come.” The Doctor is a thrashard.
