Review by Ben for Destruction - Eternal Devastation (1986)
Just as with the debut album, I find Destruction to be highly overrated. This album has only ok production, messy musicianship, and the vocals are at times terrible. The squeals that Marcel Schirmer comes out with throughout the album are cringeworthy to say the least. It's such a shame, because there are some decent riffs on here, but they are sporadic, and always surrounding by average ones.
I know Destruction have a lot of fans and I realise I’m in the minority, but I just don't like this all that much. If I compare it to other albums released in the same year such as Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Peace Sells, Darkness Descends etc. this just pales into insignificance.
Comments (2)
I appreciate your thoughts on this Jason but I would suggest that Ben's comparison on the production quality is completely justifiable given that the bands mentioned were essentially Destruction's main competition. It would have been "comparing apples with oranges" if he'd compared "Eternal Devastation" with Iron Maiden's "Somewhere In Time" or Fates Warning's "Awaken The Guardian" but to make comparisons with the senior thrash metal releases of the time seems to be completely justified to me. Whether Ben's opinion is wrong or right, the whole purpose of album reviews is to give the reader a true representation of your thoughts on the sound that's coming out of the speakers. I don't see why releases with lower recording budgets should be given any concessions. I mean if you're buying a car for $10,000 it makes little difference whether the manufacturer has spent $5,000 or $8,000 on actually making the product. You just want a good car. It would be different if one of the cars was significantly cheaper to buy but that's not the case here.
Master of Puppets, Reign in Blood, Peace Sells has huge budgets and came out on major labels. To rank on destruction because of the production is comparing apple to oranges. I can see your point on the vocals, but I disagree with almost everything else.