Vio-Lence - Eternal Nightmare (1988)Release ID: 2882
This is well played thrash that recalls Exodus and Testament at their most ferocious. It's flat chat for most of the playing time, with high speed drumming and awesome riffs one after another. So why can I only give Eternal Nightmare 3 stars instead 4 or 5. The answer is simple I'm afraid. This vocalist is terrible! Embarrassingly awful at times! His high-pitched voice is not necessarily the problem. It's his tendency to go up and down and up and down in tone that just gets downright annoying.
It's such a shame because what's on offer here is obviously good. If it had a Chuck Billy or a Tom Araya on vocals I’m pretty sure I'd like this a lot more. I'm not sure how so many thrash metal fans can tolerate them to like this enough to rate it so highly. I just...can't do it!
San Francisco Bay Area thrash metal five-piece Vio-lence were first brought to my attention when a close school mate handed me a dubbed cassette copy of their debut album “Eternal Nightmare” some time in 1989. I’d certainly seen their name around in metal magazines, often in articles that linked them to the Bay Area scene that I already loved so much so I think it’s fair to say that I was well & truly open to being dazzled by whatever it was that was in store for me. What eventuated wasn’t altogether different to that either in all honesty but it did require a little effort before I got through Vio-lence's tough exterior to reach the creamy centre. Anyone that’s familiar with Vio-lence will do doubt know what I’m talking about too.
You see, Vio-lence sported (& still sport) quite an unusual front man in Sean Killian whose voice invariably sounds like a yelping dog that’s just being runover to the unprepared new listener. As with most people, I struggled with him initially but he’s very much an acquired taste & it didn’t take all that long for me to come round to his psychotic (& admittedly pitchy) style of artistic expression. Would I prefer a more well credentialed & capable singer? Well yeah, I’d be lying if I tried to convince you otherwise but I do think he also gives Vio-lence a unique differentiator that is at least partially responsible for their longevity.
Instrumentally though, Vio-lence’s debut absolutely rips! The band were very clearly on a mission to create the fastest Bay Area thrash record released to the time & I’ll be damned if they didn’t get close to achieving it too. There are thrashtastic riffs galore here with the dual guitar attack of Rob Flynn & Phil Demmel (both of Machine Head fame) absolutely going for broke for the majority of the short but blemish-free tracklisting. The faster the band got, the more I was into them with the short, sharp shock of “Serial Killer” & the powerful “T.D.S. (Take It As You Will)” being unmitigated Bay Area classics in my opinion. These moments often see me reaching for comparisons with Dark Angel’s classic 1986 “Darkness Descends” album which can only be regarded as a feather in Vio-lence’s cap now, can’t it?
Vio-lence would never again match the sheer potency of their debut which is a shame. I certainly played the shit out of my cassette copy of their 1990 sophomore album “Oppressing The Masses” too but it always seemed like a step down from “Eternal Nightmare” if I’m being honest. I’m not gonna lie, Killian’s vocals do prevent the album from reaching the classic status it had the potential to achieve but there’s still more than enough quality, high-energy thrash metal on offer to tick my boxes & your average Forbidden, Exodus or Sacred Reich fan will be doing themselves a huge disservice if they’re not all over this band.
Vio-lence (the hyphen is significant) were another 1980's San Francisco thrash band, forming in 1985 and featuring future Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel along with Eddie Billy, brother of Testament's Chuck, until his departure in 1986. This, their debut was released in 1988 and by then future Machine Head founder, Rob Flynn, had also joined from Forbidden Evil. This delayed release of a full-length made them a little late to the party as far as establishing themselves as a major act to the larger world outside the Bay area, despite, in Flynn and Demmel, possessing a couple of guitarists that were, arguably, comparable to any in the early thrash metal scene. The big drawback for Vio-lence was that vocalist Sean Killian wasn't really very good. His thin, reedy voice didn't really suit the band's out and out aggressive thrash assault.
The seven songs on offer here are heads-down charges through, by this time, fairly established thrash metal tropes, but are still great examples of the style and have a poundingly heartfelt aggression, superb riffs, devastating solos and a really decent production job that allows the drums and bass to be clearly heard as well as the guitars.
The tempo and style of the album sits, I feel, somewhere between Reign in Blood and Among the Living, but with technically better guitarists (although this isn't technical thrash by any means). I genuinely believe that with a more competent singer, this would be an album that could quite happily sit in most people's lists of top thrash metal albums. Me, I can forgive it and love it warts and all, but I can sympathise with anyone who can't get past those damn vocals.
