Review by Rexorcist for Coroner - No More Color (1989)

No More Color is that benchmark between the accessibility of Punishment for Decadence and the extremely experimental Mental Vortex, and as a result it has everything a real thrash album needs by combining the best aspects of both albums.  As a result, this album takes technicality to a new level of catchiness.  And it really helps that these guys make heaviness look like an easy feat, and this is coming off of having finished Anthrax's Among the Living just before turning this album on.  Ron Royce's monstrous voice feels so authentic that you'd wonder if the guy really killed anyone.  Hell, "D.O.A." sounds freaking foreign to our planet, like these Swiss thrashers are really from Neptune or some crapo and they came here to annihilate us.  The album actually FEELS threatening despite how much of a jam every track is.  In fact, it's safe to say that there are very few albums that can jam this much despite its terrifying presence and technicality.  And because the album is so short, every idea the band had in this album has to work with the speed in order to perfect the mood and the presence.  I'd say it definitely succeeded there.  Listen to "Mistress of Deception" with headphones and tell me that's not the case.

Coroner's No More Color might show the effort put into it, but for the half-hour it runs, it still manages to achieve perfection.  I don't know why it took me so long to finally listen to this album by the time I started listening to albums and back in 2020, but this is one of those pieces of work which will show you exactly why thrash metal is so good.  This is the rare kind of album where every song can get away with the same goal and presence in mind because the band still manages to show a level of creativity that's hard to even train yourself to get.