The Conventional Thrash Metal Thread

Dark Angel - "Time Does Not Heal" (1991)

Look, I know "Darkness Descends" is an undisputed thrash metal classic but if I'm being completely honest it's always been Dark Angel's much more progressively structured final full-length that I regard as their creative peak. I quite simply don't buy into the claims that it's bloated & goes for a style-over-substance approach. The lengthy arrangements make perfect sense & are incredibly fluent given just how many riffs are they're comprised of. Plus, the vocal performance of Ron Rinehart is by far & away the best that Dark Angel have offered up. In fact, he often carries the less classic pieces through the middle of the album via some very catchy & powerful choruses & any number of well executed transitions that work to make the mass of different parts into an impressively cohesive piece of work. Gene Hoglan's drumming is spectacular on this record (particularly his double kick work) while you'll never hear an album with more consistently high quality & sophisticated modern thrash riffage. Sure, the tracklisting is pretty top heavy but there's nothing even close to a weak track included here. In fact, the wonderfully complex opening couple of tracks may be the best of the band's career. The one thing that I'd probably criticize is the over-use of harmonized melodic lead solos when a more aggressive King/Hannemann style of approach probably would have served the band better. Perhaps they thought the song-writing needed a little more memorability due to the sheer girth of some of the tracks but I disagree because you'll rarely find a classier & more intelligent thrash record. Nor will you find one that's more heavily underrated than this one.

4.5/5

So it's just been announced that Dave Lombardo is Gene Hoglan's replacement in Testament.

Dave Lombardo is really helping out a couple other prominent thrash bands after the end of Slayer. He has performed drums in Mr Bungle's The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo and Annihilator's Metal re-recording, Metal II.

I think he's still the drummer for Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Cross, Fantômas & Misfits too, isn't he? Is this man even human?

Parkcrest - ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red (2019)

I know shamefully little about Chile other than it is very long, has a lot of mountains and is home to the world's driest desert, The Atacama, where there are many space observatories. The other thing I know is that the Chilean thrash scene is one of the more vital and vibrant iterations of the genre in these early decades of the 21st century. Bands like Demoniac, Critical Defiance and Ripper are but the tip of the Chilean iceberg and Parkcrest are another extremely talented bunch of thrashers. It does seem like quite a tight scene however, with Parkcrest guitarist Diego Armijo and drummer Nicolás Villanueva also playing in Ripper and vocalist/guitarist Javier Salgado playing in Critical Defiance and Hellish amongst several others. Formed in 2011, Parkcrest didn't release their first album until 2016's Hallucinative Minds hit the metaphorical Bandcamp shelves. Whilst being an energetic and raw album, Hallucinative Minds is far from the finished product, but did show some promise. So did the follow up, ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red deliver on that promise? Well, I would have to say that, by and large, yes it has and it is a massive leap forward when compared to the debut.

The first difference is that the production this time round is much improved from the debut and sounds powerful, yet has an impressive clarity that allows all the band member's contributions to distinctly be heard. The rhythm section of bassist Cristoffer Pinto and Villanueva are the particular benefactors of this improvement in production values. Pinto's bass throbs along, providing a super-solid foundation from which the others can weave their magic. Villanueva's drumming is possibly the biggest revelation for me on this record, it is furious yet controlled and is much more than just straightforward pummelling. His work here is reminiscent of Dave Lombardo and praise for a thrash metal drummer doesn't get much higher than that does it?

Of course, what we all turn to thrash metal for is the riffs isn't it and here Parkcrest certainly deliver, firing them off like they're going out of style from a seemingly inexhaustible supply. There may not be quite as many as on, say, Time Does Not Heal, but they certainly come thick and fast. Guitarist Javier Salgado doubles up as vocalist and his harsh, barking vocal style is particularly reminiscent of Kreator's Mille Petrozza and, in fact, I have seen several plausible comparisons to Kreator, Slayer and early Sepultura and while they do take inspiration from these more aggressive purveyors of thrash, their sound is distinctly their own with a degree of technicality coupled with the aforementioned aggressiveness, this being a hallmark of the "Chilean sound" it would seem.

The songwriting is fantastic with several really great tracks on here, the opening duo of Impossible to Hide and Darkest Fear are a killer opening salvo and the instrumental Dwelling of the Moonlights may be my favourite thrash track since the early nineties. This is an album with a surfeit of riffs coupled with searing, meteoric soloing and a tempo that is unrelenting. I don't say this often but this is a modern thrash offering that is more than capable of holding it's own against all but the very best the genre has ever produced and Parkcrest comfortably sit in the vanguard of the latest thrash metal revitalisation.

Oh man more Chilean Tech Thrash? With one of the best covers I've seen in a while? Gotta check this one out tomorrow, it might be a bit too straightforward Thrash for my tastes but I'm excited nonetheless, great review Sonny.

Chilean Thrash hasn't disappointed yet, I was right in that I don't dig this as much as something like Demoniac since it's straight-up, more barebones Thrash, but that doesn't make it any less awesome. As someone who tends to be a bit lukewarm on classic Thrash records, this new South American resurgence has really surprised me with how much I dig it. Gonna be going back to this one quite a bit, these guys deserve way more attention. 

4/5

Demoniac - So It Goes (2021)

Continuing my travelogue through Chilean thrash I have arrived at Demoniac. Well, this album has completely blown my mind. I thought that Parkcrest's ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red album was good, but this is insane! It takes the amazing aggressive thrash metal of Parkcrest and adds a further layer of technicality and diversity - we are even treated to some dark thrash-jazz which is simply incredible-sounding. The nearly twenty-minute title track is a thrash metal classic make no bones about it. I see you have heard this Xephyr, but Daniel and Vinny you really should give this a spin - I seriously doubt you will be disappointed. I've ordered the CD off Bandcamp and I will have to work up a review to try and do it justice, but for now I'll just give it a 5/5.

I see that "The World's Shittest Ever Thrash Metal Album" is 35 years-old today. It's probably now older than it has sold copies!!

Demoniac - So It Goes (2021)

Continuing my travelogue through Chilean thrash I have arrived at Demoniac. Well, this album has completely blown my mind. I thought that Parkcrest's ...And That Blue Will Turn to Red album was good, but this is insane! It takes the amazing aggressive thrash metal of Parkcrest and adds a further layer of technicality and diversity - we are even treated to some dark thrash-jazz which is simply incredible-sounding. The nearly twenty-minute title track is a thrash metal classic make no bones about it. I see you have heard this Xephyr, but Daniel and Vinny you really should give this a spin - I seriously doubt you will be disappointed. I've ordered the CD off Bandcamp and I will have to work up a review to try and do it justice, but for now I'll just give it a 5/5.

All this talk about Demoniac made me think about this black/power metal band from New Zealand also called Demoniac, Sam Totman and Herman Li’s former band before starting the power metal band that got me into metal, DragonForce. Probably the first ever black metal band I’ve at least heard of!

Holy Terror - "Mind Wars" (1988)

This late 80's sophomore album was my introduction to Los Angeles thrash metallers Holy Terror way back in the day. I quite liked it too but I have to admit that I've never spoken of it in the same lofty terms as many extreme metal fans seem to. The band's 1987 debut album "Terror & Submission" was more of a speed metal record than it was thrash but here we see Holy Terror reversing the ratio with a good six of the ten tracks on offer falling under the bracket of some fairly aggressive & up-tempo thrash. The remaining four tracks vary between speed metal, US power metal & your more traditional heavy metal. The vocals are a major contributor to my finding an insurmountable cap on my appreciation of "Mind Wars" as they're a little pedestrian to tell you truth. The guitar solos are surprisingly great though & there are plenty of great energetic riffs on offer. I found a fair bit of enjoyment in Holy Terror's debut but I think "Mind Wars" just shades it for the band's finest work. It's just not an album that I feel the need to return to all that often.

3.5/5