Onslaught - Killing Peace (2007)^{Release ID: 6508}

I am a big fan of Onslaught's first two albums. Let's face it they were one of the very few thrash metal bands of any real consequence that hailed from the UK, so a bit of local bias came into play to endear them to me, even though those two albums are really good anyway. However, I have never listened to any of their post-reformation albums. Well, the intervening years between the 1991 split and 2004 reformation had seen the thrash world fall under the thrall of the groove gods, with the shadow cast by the likes of Pantera and Machine Head proving to be almost all-encompassing. In the 21st century it feels like the thrash world split into two distinct camps, the bands who embraced extremity and incorporated more death or black metal into their sound (let's call these the good ones) and those who sold their souls to the groove gods (for argument's sake we will call these the bad ones) in the hunt for increased record sales. Listening to "Killing Peace" it is obvious that Onslaught took the latter path, despite their earlier stuff suggesting they would be more likely to embrace the former.

To be honest, after only a handful of tracks I had had enough of this, it's groove-oriented approach sounding far too much like a knock-off Machine Head for me to stomach it for long. I stuck it out until the end as I was out dog-walking and it was easier to keep listening than change it. However, come album's end I had the horrible empty feeling in the stomach that I get when I realise a band I once really dug has sold out and is nothing more than a trend-following shell of its former glory. In fairness only two of the guys who recorded "Power From Hell" were present on "Killing Peace", drummer Steve Grice and lead guitarist Nige Rockett who had even relegated himself to rhythm guitar in the new band, but even so, the latter album sounds like it was conceived and recorded by a completely different band, possibly one from a different dimension such is the lack of connection I make to it. For me, this is akin to the chasm in quality between St Anger and Master of Puppets.

On the plus side the production is super clean, as you would expect from an album recorded this century and there are a couple of quite gnarly solos, with opener "Burn" being a case in point. Steve Grice's drumming is very good too and is one of the only reasons to listen to this more than once, which I am doing right now, so dedicated am I to delivering a considered opinion! The lead vocals are pretty horrible though ("Destroyer of Worlds" is just painful), the gang backing vocals are even worse and those bouncy, groove-oriented riffs are anathema to all I hold dear. Add in yet another overused "I am become death" Oppenheimer sample and I have just about had it with this.

I originally had this pegged as a 2.5, but further listening has hardened my opinion agaginst it and I can't bring myself to go higher than a 2.0. I will definitely stick with Onslaught's 80s stuff and file their reform albums in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in the shed at the bottomof the garden marked "Do Not Listen - Ever".

There is a perhaps negligible amount of Onslaught in my thrash music catalogue given my penchant for this sub-genre. I have not made this a conscious effort by any means but I can only surmise that nothing has grabbed me all that well during the various outings I have given the band over the years. Needless to say that Killing Peace is not what I expected, it is marginally more groove metal than it is thrash which does not make it a bad record, just an unexpected outcome I guess.

As a result, the album lacks a sense of rhythm overall. It is not devoid of rhythm by any means but lacks the requisite level of consistent chug and chop that you would expect of an established thrash act like Onslaught. It is still an album that is stacked full of riffs however and has a big sound behind the production job that compliments the vocals, guitars and drums superbly.

The delirious energy of Sy Keeler’s vocals (a la Blitz's style in Overkill) is endearing enough on its own to carry the album but the guitars of Jordan and Rockett fire out flares of monstrous Machine Head-like riffs. When the record does revert to a more thrashy format it is with a distinctly modern edge that resembles very little of the old-school thrash metal blueprint. Whilst the power and aggression is there this is an album that is consciously seeking catchiness from more 90’s groove references than anything the band put out themselves in the 80’s. There are a lot of Slayer riffs hiding in here though from around the South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss era that you do not have to search all that hard to find.

However, this was a comeback album after more than fifteen years after they parted ways and they certainly came back with a bang. They proved they could match the younger crop of bands in the energy stakes without sounding contrived or indeed having to try all that hard. For an old-school thrasher like me, Killing Peace is not an album I will be revisiting any time soon but it is still a very solid groove metal album for fans of the sub-genre.

Good god!!!! This might just be the most potent and visceral return to form from any reunited thrash act I've ever heard. Tight, vicious, raw and relentless...Killing Peace is easily the best thing this band has ever laid to tape. Perfectly marrying the primal brutality of their early albums with the tight punch of their last album, Killing Peace is sure to make naysayers eat their shorts. Sye sounds better than EVER and the rhythm section has seemingly not aged in the last 18yrs.

This is mindblowing stuff here, folks. BRUTAL!