Reviews list for Coroner - R.I.P. (1987)

Coroner's debut, whilst still being almost universally lauded, has been overshadowed a bit by their better produced and more technically focussed releases that succeeded it. Whilst that is understandable as they are great records, this less polished and more reckless-sounding release should not be ignored by anyone who considers themselves a fan of either Coroner in particular, or thrash metal generally. For a debut release this is supremely confident sounding and the playing is technically adept to such a level that it puts a lot of their contemporaries to shame, the sheer pace of a song like Suicide Command would ensure it descended into a bit of a mess in less accomplished hands. The style for most of the album is pretty much straight-ahead, uptempo, neckbreaking thrashing, incendiary solos firing off with regular abandon at a thousand notes a minute. I also love Ron Royce's vocals, they sound a lot like Iron Maiden's Paul Di'Anno, a singer who, for me, embodies the power and aggression demanded of metal vocalists and sound perfect here.

1986/87 was arguably the high water mark for thrash metal and Coroner's debut is a release that is well at home in the company of those other legendary releases as well as being a really solid building block for their more technical and accomplished subsequent releases. Unfortunately this passed me by upon it's original release and it would be much later before I got into Coroner, which is a great shame as this would really have appealed to a 25-year-old me.

Interestingly, later editions of the album have a bonus track, Spiral Dream which was written by Celtic Frost's Tom G. Warrior who had a close connection to the band, even performing vocals on 1986's Death Cult demo and indeed, seems to have been a big influence on the band's style. One of the better and more accomplished debuts from the world of eighties' thrash metal and a great place to start if you want to explore Coroner's discography.

I've always been a fan of Coroner's later albums but hadn't spent too much time with this debut album. Over the last couple of weeks, I've given it quite a few listens and I have to say it's in the same league as everything else they produced in their career. The production may be a bit less clean, but the musicianship and song writing are just as great.

The main thing that comes to mind when describing this band is pure technical musicianship. Even at this early stage, they were writing progressive, technical thrash that was quite different to everything else around. Tommy T. Baron's guitar work is simply jaw dropping at times. He was one of the very top guitarists in metal and from video footage I've seen, seemingly did it easily.

When Angels Die is one of my absolute favourite Coroner tracks and Reborn Through Hate, Nosferatu and Fried Alive are also up there. The album does have a mid-section that drops off slightly with the title track and Coma not really doing a lot, but the rest is class. For anyone into the more technical thrash metal out there, this is recommended.