Nasty Savage - Jeopardy Room (2024)^{Release ID: 55679}

When I fired up this bad boy, it had been far too long since I last heard Nasty Savage, remembering their '80s stuff as some surprisingly dirty-sounding power/thrash. Sleaze thrash would be an apt descriptor. But bands rarely sound the same after nearly forty years and a nearly complete lineup change, what would be the difference?
They've definitely gone for a more straight thrash sound, and it's very different, but it's still Nasty Savage. Gone is the sleaze and instead we have a grimness to things. Vocalist Nasty Ronnie sounds not like the high pitched vocalists of the '80s, like he used to be, but like Lee Dorian off Soul Sacrifice. It's a very odd thing to hear, but fits the package. I wonder if it was intentional or accidental?
Despite a mostly new lineup since the good old days, it doesn't really feel like Ronnie + some hired guns. Unless this is just a masterclass in managing hired guns. You'd swear they were working together for decades; They got some good energy. They come together well to make a song, but individually they are less than the whole. The riffs aren't particularly memorable; The lyrics are vaguely connected nonsense and probably have the exact same lines in all the verses; The drum sound is one of those obnoxious electronic-sounding ones. As a complete package, they work together for a grimy, creepy sound. And it helps that the solos, while not true guitar god territory, have the right mix of technicality and story-telling to get there.
Most of the songs, while they'll have a slight deviation from the usual thrash formula, are mostly what you expect. Then there are the oddities on the album. Witches' Sabbath starts off like a Pink Floyd song and then something more Mercyful Fate-esque. At this point the album is solidly thrash, despite a few intros, so this noticeable even during a casual listen. Despite the out of place theatrical nature, it does a good job of breaking up what might otherwise be a monotonous album. Schizoid Platform sounds completely different to the rest, like some Voivod/Atheist piece. Not really tech thrash, it just sounds like it. I don't know if they changed the guitar tone on this song to song like Atheist or if it's always like that and this just reminded me of an Atheist song. I'm a huge sucker for both those bands (well, Doom Japan and Atheist, but Voivod is Doom for the average metalhead) so I really liked it. That said, as the lead singles, I question the decision to pick these. I just assumed that the whole album would sound like Schizoid Platform.
I'm glad to see a band successfully survive after losing most of its members and coming up with a new, yet distinctly them sound. Time will tell if they can keep it up or if this is merely a lucky one-off.