REVIEW DRAFT - The Pit

I'll take Assassin's Combat Cathedral. I think I've heard their debut at some point, but that's about it.

I'll go with the Blessed Death album. I quite liked their 1987  Destined for Extinction album, so that will do for me.

Meliah Rage - Idol Hands (2018)

Meliah Rage are a noisy bunch. In fact Idol Hands comes straight out of the traps in a riffing frenzy and maintains this trajectory over the eight tracks on offer. Having somehow missed this band over their 30 year plus career I wondered initially how I had never picked up on any releases previously as at first glance they seemed to have some promise for my tastes. Then two things became immediately apparent very quickly with Idol Hands that made me see more or less instantly why my foray into their discography will probably be limited to this one release. Meliah Rage are to me like a poor persons version of Metal Church. That combination of power, heavy and thrash metal that Metal Church managed to nail for at least a few releases is not as well moulded here within the ranks of Meliah Rage and as a result their blend of metal is too power metal orientated for my liking.

The vocals of Paul Souza are by far the most power metal laden element to the bands sound here. For all the riffing that Jim Koury and Anthony Nichols manage to muster from the twin guitar attack (complete with some standard yet perfectly well-done lead work also) it is Souza's vocals that blunt the attack with their overly expressive gruffness that at times are quite comedic. Although he can hold tone, he lacks range and his style soon becomes predictable. Equally, drummer Stuart Dowie appears uninterested (or unable) in stretching his legs beyond some very rudimentary efforts - I mean where are the fills fella? He just sits there following the same pattern, track after track. I am not sure he has more than one stick in all honesty.

As I said, when I threw Idol Hands on at first it was instantly obvious they were noisy enough, unfortunately what they have to say is boring and predictable. Lyrically they hold a level of naivety that belies their years together as the below excerpt for the terrible Sentenced to Life clearly shows:

Trapped inside your body

Locked inside your head

Dying to be someone else

Wishing you were dead

This is poor heavy metal, badly written and actively suppressing the two bits of talent that the band holds (the guitarists) within limiting and restraining structures that challenge nobody in terms of skill set.

2/5

Assassin - Combat Cathedral (2016)

While I've always been aware of Assassin (their debut album The Upcoming Terror is held in reasonably high regard), I'm not certain I'd ever checked them out. Selecting their 5th album, 2016's Combat Cathedral, as my November draft pick for The Pit has given me the opportunity to do just that. Right from the get go I've been impressed with what I've heard. The production is strong, and the band certainly know how to write punchy thrash riffs. Vocalist Ingo Bajonczak is a definite highlight too, being a cross between Testament's Chuck Billy and Pantera's Phil Anselmo, albeit with a German accent. When I listen to the album while doing other things, I'm consistently drawn in by the album's highlight moments, but I have to admit that it's formulaic approach and 53 minute running time have made it a bit of a slog to really focus on in one sitting. In the end I think I get enough enjoyment out of Combat Cathedral to go with 3.5 stars. If you enjoy traditional thrash metal, you could do a lot worse than this.

3.5 stars

Sorry guys, I have failed in my Pit assignment this month. I have listened to the Blessed Death album several times but, in all honesty, I have hit a bit of a brick wall as far as writing reviews is concerned. I guess it's a bit like when an author gets writers block. I can't think of anything worthwhile to write - it all just sounds like shit (my writing, not the album). It's probably just a crisis of confidence and hopefully it will pass.

Time for another Review Draft for The Pit. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Sonny

2. Vinny

3. Ben

The six releases to select from are... (drumroll)...

Sonny gets first pick...

I listened to Messiah's debut Hymn to Abramelin  for my deep dive into early death metal and didn't much care for it. Choir of Horrors seems very highly rated though, so I will give them another chance and take that.

I was very tempted by Gang Green but have decided to give Testament the nod.  Over to you Ben.

Testament - "Souls of Black" (1990)

Souls of Black was (according to Chuck Billy) written and recorded in a rush to get the band on the European leg of The Clash of the Titans tour with Slayer, Megadeth and Suicidal Tendencies. It sounds like it in all honesty. From the off you cannot fail to hear the scratchy sound to the guitars and the overall compression on all the production, with tinny drums and too much echo on Chuck’s vocals. Given the experience of Michael Rosen in the production chair and the late Tom Coyne covering mixing duties this is a surprising outcome but one that somehow does not entirely ruin Souls of Black.

Over repeated listens, the album has grown on me. It will never be a regular play though because (production issues aside) it is so inconsistent. This must be down to the hectic nature of the album being put together as Chuck describes, even though this is clearly a thrash metal record, it sounds rushed and that cannot be hidden by the sheer intensity of the rhythms that the band deploys. When the band are on point (Absence of Light, One Man’s Fate, Malpractice and the title track) they truly do motor at a huge rate of knots. However, the rest of the album is just filler with a smattering of promise of greater things littered largely throughout the lead work of Alex and Eric.

By comparison, Louie Clemente seems lost in the mix, occasionally bobbing his head above the squall to remind us he is there pounding away. Despite being audible he somehow lacks presence on the record. Greg’s bass is also able to be heard – if not in a muffled sense – but overall, no instrument escapes the poor production job. The most obvious element is still Chuck’s booming vocals that get enough restraint from the production to the benefit of the album overall, but they sound detached from the rest of the band’s performances, like they were over-layered as an afterthought somehow.

Not the best Testament record they have ever done but still has some enjoyable elements to remember even if they are not enough to bring me back for repeat visits.

3/5

Tempted by the Schizophrenia EP after enjoying their full length, but I've never heard Violator so that's my pick.

Messiah - Choir of Horrors (1991)

During my dive into the early years of death metal during my Voyage of (Re-)Discovery project, I happened upon Messiah's debut, the 1986 album, Hymn to Abramelin. Well, that didn't go too well and it held little lasting appeal for me as I found it to be a bit of a mess, Messiah seeming like a band with more ideas than they could bring together successfully. So five years later and four years after their sophomore Extreme Cold Weather (which I haven't heard) they were back with Choir of Horrors. Now this is much more up my street as they seemed to have decided what they wanted to do and concentrated on doing that well rather than throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks. What they do very well is a thrashy kind of death metal that reminds me a lot of Poland's Vader whose debut appeared a year after Choir of Horrors. The band playing on Choir of Horrors are unrecognisable from the one that produced Hymn of Abremalin, having seriously tightened up all round, both playing and songwriting-wise, and this is actually a really punchy slab of thrash/death that should appeal to any nineties extreme metal-loving, right-thinking person. OK, you've heard plenty like it since, but in context I think it is a great example of early nineties death metal. Really good songs, great vocals, a solid rhythm section and neck-wrenching riffs that appeal more to the physical side of extreme metal than the cerebral, which is what i signed up for in the first place!

Don't you find it amazingly satisfying when a band you have written off as terrible or not your kind of thing then ram it back down your throat and prove you wrong? Messiah have certainly done that here and I will most definitely will be seeking a copy of this to listen to whilst I bite into my huge slice of humble pie! Another winner for the review draft.

4/5

Time for another Review Draft for The Pit. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Ben

2. Sonny

3. Vinny

The six releases to select from are... (drumroll)...

I'll take the Whiplash album. Not sure I've listened to that one.

Over to you Sonny...

I've not listened to them since 2008's Citizen Brain, so I will take the Gama Bomb album.

Vinny, the floor is yours.

Ex Mortus for me.

Gama Bomb - Sea Savage (2020)

So, as I said before, I haven't listened to Gama Bomb since 2008's Citizen Brain album, which I bought at the time, but haven't spun a whole lot since as, to be honest, it didn't do much for me (I will have to revisit it though after this). Gama Bomb write short, breakneck, often humourous, thrash metal that makes no attempt to break new ground and I have no problem with that. Of the twelve tracks on Sea Savage, the longest is four and a half minutes with half the album's songs clocking in at under three minutes and, I must admit, the band in full flow do thrash fucking hard. The tongue-in-cheek humour that is employed throughout isn't especially jarring and doesn't detract from the music at all - and let's be honest here, thrash metal, lyrically, can often be ridiculous even when played straight-up.

No, by far my biggest bugbear with Sea Savage is regarding the vocals. Mostly they are fine, but way too often vocalist Philly Byrne resorts to a ridiculous falsetto that feels like it may be a parody of Painkiller-era Rob Halford and I hate it. It occurs at some point in nearly every track and totally ruins them for me. It's use is most prevalent on the title track and it makes that track virtually unlistenable to my ears.

Despite this quite substantial misgiving, I still have to give the album a 3.5/5 because, as I said earlier, it does thrash so fucking hard and at it's best it is quite infectious, but that damn scream is just so fucking annoying that I can't ignore it and must reflect it in the score.

3.5/5

Exmortus - The Sound of Boredom

EDIT

Exmortus - The Sound of Steel (2018)

Sigh. I kind of feel like Exmortus exist in the wrong era. The old-school album artwork should really be clue enough but those retro heavy/speed metal vibes are not just isolated to the album cover alone. Within the ten tracks here there is enough 1990's neoclassical references as you could ever hope to find (if "hope" is the right word for you - it is not for me, "misfortune" is a much more accurate word). All this guitar wankery is played at breakneck speed to try and impress further upon the listener how talented the artist is. Problem is it is all the energy of Vektor, rehashed into some dull attempt to sound vaguely as interesting as they were; I mean this album is one of the main reasons that I left The Guardians clan behind last year.

Literally no opportunity to show-off is missed on here. However long the intro to a song is, rest assured that some lead or over the top melodies are right around the corner. They even have the nerve to park an instrumental track in the middle of the album and call it A Minor Instrumental. If only they would have confined all the showboating to this one track! When not widdling their way to eternity the band try and get the chops going but it lacks any edge to make this anything like a thrash release with any concrete credentials. This is just an exhausting record and I do not not what tired me out soonest, the content or the continued reaching for the mouse to skip the album along.

Utterly pointless and instantly forgettable, The Sound of Steel is all filler and no killer. Yes the guitarists can play and the sub-genre (Neoclassical thrash??) demands more of this stuff but it is just so dull and presents zero appeal to me.

1.5/5

Gama Bomb - Sea Savage (2020)

So, as I said before, I haven't listened to Gama Bomb since 2008's Citizen Brain album, which I bought at the time, but haven't spun a whole lot since as, to be honest, it didn't do much for me (I will have to revisit it though after this). Gama Bomb write short, breakneck, often humourous, thrash metal that makes no attempt to break new ground and I have no problem with that. Of the twelve tracks on Sea Savage, the longest is four and a half minutes with half the album's songs clocking in at under three minutes and, I must admit, the band in full flow do thrash fucking hard. The tongue-in-cheek humour that is employed throughout isn't especially jarring and doesn't detract from the music at all - and let's be honest here, thrash metal, lyrically, can often be ridiculous even when played straight-up.

No, by far my biggest bugbear with Sea Savage is regarding the vocals. Mostly they are fine, but way too often vocalist Philly Byrne resorts to a ridiculous falsetto that feels like it may be a parody of Painkiller-era Rob Halford and I hate it. It occurs at some point in nearly every track and totally ruins them for me. It's use is most prevalent on the title track and it makes that track virtually unlistenable to my ears.

Despite this quite substantial misgiving, I still have to give the album a 3.5/5 because, as I said earlier, it does thrash so fucking hard and at it's best it is quite infectious, but that damn scream is just so fucking annoying that I can't ignore it and must reflect it in the score.

3.5/5

Being my usual picky self, I find the irony of the "Sea Savage" being a beast of ape descendance (i.e. a land mammal) and not anything associated with the sea particularly laughable. 

Exmortus - The Sound of Boredom

EDIT

Exmortus - The Sound of Steel (2018)

Sigh. I kind of feel like Exmortus exist in the wrong era. The old-school album artwork should really be clue enough but those retro heavy/speed metal vibes are not just isolated to the album cover alone. Within the ten tracks here there is enough 1990's neoclassical references as you could ever hope to find (if "hope" is the right word for you - it is not for me, "misfortune" is a much more accurate word). All this guitar wankery is played at breakneck speed to try and impress further upon the listener how talented the artist is. Problem is it is all the energy of Vektor, rehashed into some dull attempt to sound vaguely as interesting as they were; I mean this album is one of the main reasons that I left The Guardians clan behind last year.

Literally no opportunity to show-off is missed on here. However long the intro to a song is, rest assured that some lead or over the top melodies are right around the corner. They even have the nerve to park an instrumental track in the middle of the album and call it A Minor Instrumental. If only they would have confined all the showboating to this one track! When not widdling their way to eternity the band try and get the chops going but it lacks any edge to make this anything like a thrash release with any concrete credentials. This is just an exhausting record and I do not not what tired me out soonest, the content or the continued reaching for the mouse to skip the album along.

Utterly pointless and instantly forgettable, The Sound of Steel is all filler and no killer. Yes the guitarists can play and the sub-genre (Neoclassical thrash??) demands more of this stuff but it is just so dull and presents zero appeal to me.

1.5/5

Yeah, I saw the neoclassical tag associated with this and immediately my eyes glazed over and I passed it by.

Just realised I never posted my Whiplash review here...

Whiplash - Insult to Injury (1989)

The Metal Academy Review Drafts are certainly making me check out releases that I probably never would have otherwise. As much as I enjoyed Whiplash's debut album Power and Pain from 1986, I'd never considered delving any further into their discography. Having now spent some time with their third release, Insult to Injury, I don't think I've missed out on all that much, but that's not to say that there's no enjoyment to be had. By this point the band had taken a significant step away from the Exodus-like aggression of the debut and moved into more Judas Priest style heavy metal. In fact, there's so much heavy metal on this album that I don't think it would sound out of place in The Guardians. I think this transition is a bit problematic for the band though. When you can no longer hide behind thrashing intensity, songwriting ability becomes far more important, and unfortunately Insult to Injury is a bit hit and miss on that front. For every good track, such as the title track and highlight Essence of Evil, there's a less memorable effort, such as Hiroshima and the appropriately titled Rape of the Mind. In the end this is a decent listen for anyone that enjoys bands that straddle the heavy / thrash line (such as Metal Church), but it's an album I likely won't go back to very often.

3 stars

Time for another Review Draft for The Pit. This month's pick order will be as follows...

1. Vinny

2. Ben

3. Sonny

The six releases to select from are... (drumroll)...

Vinny gets first pick this month...

Give me some of that Deathchain please.

Over to you Ben...

Hmmm... all six albums are from the 2000s, which is strange for this 80s / 90s dominated clan.

I'll pick the Agent Steel album. I quite enjoyed their first two albums.

Over to you Sonny...

I really loved Holy Moses' 1987 album, Finished With the Dogs, but I never followed up by listening to anything they put out later, so I would be interested to hear how they sounded in 2001. So Holy Moses' Master of Disaster is my pick.

Deathchain - Deadmeat Disciples (2003)

Finnish death/thrashers Deathchain are a welcome discovery via this month's review draft choices. Featuring a couple of members who at one point in time were in Demilich (albeit one is still the live drummer), Deathchain like to always include the words 'dead' or 'death' in their album titles. It is by no means their best quirk. Instead I would simply draw attention to their raging death/thrash sound full of volcanic riffing and flesh-stripping vocals as being the biggest takeaway that I get from their debut release that I have somehow missed for the last twenty years.

Vocalist, Rotten (no longer with the band) has the perfect style for the death/thrash sub-genre. Ranging from harsh and scathing to match those riffs through to a low, guttural gurn being applied when needed to mix things up. Guitarists, Bobby Undertaker and Corpse (FFS) know their way along a fretboard and can fire in sonic leads as well as keep an intense riffing pattern going also. Sometimes with death/thrash I find myself trapped in a melodic death metal space with lots of groove metal elements applied which really are not the boxes that I want ticking when I choose me some death/thrash metal. Thankfully, there is none of that here as Deadmeat Disciples is bang on the money in terms of delivering exactly what they promise to.

Consistency is key on any album, and Deathchain almost fall foul of ending up as too consistent (almost folks, almost) as there are a couple of occasions where the album blends into familiar ground that has already been explored. The short run time mitigates this though at just under thirty-three minutes. My only real criticism is more to cry out the injustice of the mix on the drums. Kassara is clearly a talent and you can hear the power in that stick work, however it is never really allowed to shine and always feels like the drums have been included as an afterthought. Still a great discovery though and highly recommended to fans of The Crown and Legion of the Damned.

4/5