Review by Daniel for Hobbs Angel of Death - Hobbs Angel of Death (1988)

Following on from my having revisited the Slaughter Lord compilation last week, I felt like it’d been too long since I last revisited another legendary underground Aussie thrash enigma in 1988’s self titled debut album from Melbourne’s Hobbs Angel of Death. This record made a huge impact on the local scene when I was first becoming involved with extreme metal & it would have been hard for me to avoid becoming well versed in the unapologetically thrashtastic approach that Pete Hobbs & co. took with it. I have to admit though that I've never quite understood the heights of some of the praise that gets heaped on “Hobbs Angel of Death”.

Band leader & guitar-slinging front man Pete Hobbs was originally a member of a highly influential & important Melbourne heavy metal band called Tyrus who never got past the demo stage but developed a really strong following & significant notoriety through the Metal For Melbourne record store which put on some of the initial metal gigs in this country. Another band to benefit from these gigs was Nothing Sacred who would go on to become known as one of the earliest thrash bands in Australia, a claim I deny as I've always thought of them as being closer to heavy metal personally. Hobbs would initially recruit three ex-members of Nothing Sacred to record a couple of demo tapes that would see him signing a recording contract with legendary German metal label Steamhammer Records. Guitarist Mark Woolley was the only one of the three who would still be onboard by the time the album was recorded with bass player Phil Gresik (who would later go on to play for other notable Melbourne extreme metal acts like Bestial Warlust & Destroyer 666) & drummer Darren McMaster-Smith completing a four-piece line-up.

The production job on “Hobbs Angel of Death” is one of its strongest attributes as Steamhammer had brought in renowned producer Harris Johns who already had widely praised releases like Kreator’s “Pleasure To Kill”, Voivod’s “Killing Technology” & the first couple Helloween records under his belt. You can easily hear why the label paid the big bucks as this is far from your average under-produced, demo-quality 80's thrash debut. Gresik's bass sound is particularly impressive & suits his Tom Angelripper-esque style very nicely. The performances are highly professional too with the band sounding really tight & professional. The are a few acoustic guitar sections included which do tend to sound a little out of place given the metal-as-fuck, Satanic image that Hobbs seems to be trying to portray with his vocals, lyrics & imagery. The lengthy “Marie Antoinette” is the most atmospheric example of that.

I really enjoy Hobbs’ aggressive vocals & clever use of Satanic themes in his lyrics. It’s a bit of fun more than anything else but it works. The thrash-at-all-costs instrumentation is a suitable accompaniment for him too as the band pulls few stops in presenting themselves in as metal a fashion as possible. A lot of people will have you believe that Hobbs Angel of Death were right up there with the Slayers & Dark Angels as far as intensity goes & they certainly have their moments but I’d argue that they were nowhere near as consistent with it. Sure, a song like “Lucifer’s Domain” sounds very similar to Sodom & there are plenty of Slayer references scattered across the tracklisting but the riffs don’t quite have the edge of the top tier thrash gods as they're a little too basic in structure which also makes them sound a bit generic at times.

There’s no denying Hobbs’ consistency though as none of the ten tracks on offer (eight if you’ve got the vinyl version) come close to being weak. I just don’t think the band have achieved a genuinely classic thrash tune here though. “House Of Death” (my personal favourite) & “The Journey” are certainly very strong examples of their type but they never come close to the top tier in my opinion. At their best Hobbs Angel of Death compete with the likes of Canada’s Infernäl Mäjesty but more often sit closer to England’s Deathwish or fellow Aussies Mortal Sin due to a lack of sophistication & x-factor in their composition. Don’t get me wrong, Australia has certainly produced a pretty decent thrash record here. I’m just not sure it’s deserving of the cult status it seems to enjoy amongst old-school Aussie metalheads & I'd probably take Slaughter Lord's "Taste of Blood" demo or Mortal Sin's "Mayhemic Destruction" over it if I had to choose. Who said I'm biased towards Sydney?