Sonny's Reviews

Sadus and their Illusions album are, unfortunately, one of those bands with whom I have passed like ships in the night. I say unfortunately because it's frantic, headlong thrashing is right up my street, as they say. It incorporates elements of early death metal into the teutonic-inspired thrash of Kreator and Sodom in a way that is heavily indebted to Possessed's Seven Churches. One thing that really does stand out on Illusions, in a way previously unheard on a thrash release, was the bass playing of Steve DiGiorgio which almost seems to double as an extra rhythm guitar. Darren Travis' deranged, screaming vocals just sound demented (in a good way), as on the track Torture. The riffs are cranked to hyperspeed and the solos are searingly savage, in a Jeff Hanneman kind of way. With song titles like Certain Death, And Then You Die, Twisted Face and Fight or Die I think we can tell where the band are coming from. Despite hailing from LA, I guess these guys weren't hanging out on the strip with Mötley Crüe and L.A. Guns!
Any fan of the faster, more aggressive side of thrash and albums like Reign in Blood, Pleasure to Kill and Darkness Descends should certainly grab a copy of this. I don't think they would be disappointed.

Sabbat were and obviously remain, the UK's best thrash band (although if Sacrilege had made more albums like Behind the Realms of Madness that may not have been the case). I was completely floored by their debut, History of A Time To Come and it is still one of my favourite 80's albums. Dreamweaver was the band's second and, unfortunately, the last to feature frontman Martin Walkyier. As much as anything it was Walkyier's dense paganistic lyrics and singular vocal style that gave the band their identity. Sabbat's other main man was guitarist and now much-respected producer of bands such as Kreator, Nevermore and Arch Enemy, Andy Sneap.

Dreamweaver's thrash is of the fairly technical variety with a certain amount of complexity to the songs. Walkyier is also a verbose lyricist, I mean, most of these songs have a LOT of lyrics which are delivered relentlessly and occasionally feel rushed in the attempt to fit them all in, Walkyier spitting out words like a machine gun spits bullets. As such, this is a decent record and does thrash when it wants to but, to be honest, it isn't an album that deserves the reverence that a lot of people show towards it and certainly not as much as the debut, a record I still believe has more character than this, with it's tendency to become a bit samey. 

Walkyier departed the band after this album due to a difference with Sneap over the more prog-oriented direction the guitarist seemed to be taking them towards and probably made the right decision. For me, if I ever feel the need for Sabbat (and I still occasionally do) it is History... I invariably reach for, not this.

Holy Terror were a short-lived LA thrash band that formed in 1985 and left a couple of great albums behind them before splitting in '89. Mind Wars was the second of these albums and is as much speed metal as it is thrash. As most people tend to comment, the production is absolute shit and the sound is muddied as a consequence. However, the poor production doesn't kill what is a ripping record nonetheless. The tempo is high, the riffs are turbo-charged and the solos shred like hell. The songs arguably share more DNA with Iron Maiden than Metallica, particularly 80's vintage Maiden, albeit much faster - check out the galloping bass lines of The Immoral Wasteland or the guitar sound of Fool's Gold for classic Maidenisms. Singer Keith Deen has got a decent snarl, but his high notes aren't always great and sometimes sound like he's straining to maintain, but his aggressive, almost punk style is very much his own, particularly excelling on the hardcore-influenced Do Unto Others. If you're up for some full-throttle, thrashing speed metal than you could do much worse than wrapping your ears round this underrated beauty.

Despite forming in 1985 and releasing their first album in 1990 I have never heard of Psychotic Waltz before listening to this, their fifth proper full-length and first since reforming in 2010. Now I'm no big prog metal nerd, but I actually enjoyed this more than I expected to. Sure it's a little more clean-sounding than a lot of metal I listen to, but the songs are quite engaging and are certainly well-performed. I quite often take against prog metal because of it's occasional tendency towards ego-stroking with band members striving to outdo each other in an ever more technical and sterile circle jerk. Happily this has none of those tendencies with the band all pulling in the same direction and presenting a coherent album of songs rather than performances.

Now this is never going to be a go-to album for me, but I found more than enough to like here and some of it is actually quite catchy (Pull the String for example). I would have no qualms recommending it to any prog fans out there who want to listen to some actual songs and not be drowned in technical wizardry.

Germans Deathrow finally emerged from their fellow countrymen Sodom and Kreator's shadow with this their third album, Deception Ignored, taking technical thrash to new levels with it's progressive tendencies. Now, unlike most, I don't consider this to really be a prog metal album, it is most definitely still a thrash album, but it is a busy sonofabitch, third track Triocton, for example, could almost be termed thrash-jazz it's has so much going on. The playing is exceptional, guitarists Sven Flügge and Uwe Osterlehner trading riffs and solos like a pair of world class heavyweights and the drumming is outstanding and never misses a beat, no matter what other technical trickery is going on. Milo Van Jaksic's vocals are pretty decent, more akin to Joey Belladonna than the usual thrash growls, but on a couple of occasions his voice does sound a bit strained.
Now I have no wish to paint this album as all technical jiggerypokery and lacking in the thrash department because believe me my friends, this still thrashes like a mutha. Seriously, check out The Deathwish, N.L.Y.H. or Watching the World and try telling me these guys don't know how to thrash as hard as anyone. I have seen a number of reviews calling this album dull and, in all honesty, I really don't know what kind of adrenaline junkie you'd have to be to find this boring. You may not like it but boring it certainly isn't. I am often underwhelmed by a lot of technical metal, but this is just so damn infectious that I found it's technicalities exhilharating instead of offputting. Probably my favourite tech-thrash album.

You know the one by that norwegian band with the drummer who goes bada-bada-bada-bada at 100 miles an hour for six or seven minutes, the guitarist who plays fairly boring basic riffs, a singer who shrieks like someone's taken a cheese grater to his balls and then every so often there's a bit of synth in an attempt to offer some variety? Well, this is like that, only not as good.

S.O.D. or Stormtroopers of Death were a four-piece crossover band consisting of Anthrax's Scott Ian, Dan Lilker and Charlie Benante with Billy Milano of hardcore band The Psychos (and later M.O.D.) on vocals, formed as an outlet for the Anthrax guys' love of hardcore punk. I've always been partial to a bit of hardcore myself, Bad Brains, Sick of It All, Minor Threat and early Suicidal Tendencies have all released some of my favourite records and at the time I was well into Speak English or Die. But... that was a long time ago.
The album actually starts off pretty well kicking off with the instro March of the S.O.D. leading into Sargent "D" & the S.O.D. sounding a lot like hyper-charged tracks from Among the Living with punky vocals. In fact the album isn't all that bad until we get to Anti-Procrastination Song then things go downhill fast, it's six seconds presumably lampooning Napalm Death's You Suffer and from then on the juvenile humour takes over and things get tedious. What's that Noise? has, like a noise in it that's really annoying... geddit? Premenstrual Princess, Pussy Whipped and the oh so hilarious Ballad of Jimi Hendrix are cringeworthy. By the time you add in the pointless Hey Gordy! and Diamonds and Rust (Extended Version) your intelligence has probably been insulted enough for one record.

This is a surprisingly uplifting album, considering the subject matter seems so dark (at least judging by the song titles). Nicely crafted and well executed, I'm a bit of a sucker for this expansive modern atmo-black sound as performed by acts such as Saor and Alda and of which this is another fine example.

These Russians' brand of atmospheric black metal has a distinctly Eastern European flavour that sets it apart, in that it doesn't overtly use acoustic folk sections like so many others, but the songs are imbued with the influence of russian folk music in their DNA. This results in the tracks being especially melodic, but the band temper this melodiousness with particularly desperate-sounding vocals. A mention must also go to the fantastic production of the album that allows all the instruments equal room to be heard rather than the all-out frantic blur more usual in atmo-black. Thoroughly modern black metal that is many times removed from Deathcrush and A Blaze in the Northern Sky, being wonderfully different to those classics and showing how black metal can evolve and progress when in the right hands. There are leaders and followers, I would suggest Sivyj Yar are the former.

Each of the album's two tracks takes up a side of the LP and consist of droning sludge that has a structure both very basic and yet exceedingly effective. Both tracks begin with devastatingly heavy sections that lead to slower quieter passages where time barely seems to pass, before building to even heavier cataclysmic climaxes - classic extreme doom / sludge material.

Frayle's debut full-length album comes two years after the four-track The White Witch EP introduced the band to metal audiences worldwide. That ep's inclusion of a Portishead cover may have given some early indication of the direction the band wanted to go in.
The album starts off in pretty good shape, after a short intro, with the title track, 1692. It's riffs are huge, slow and cavernous as a marked contrast to Gwyn Strang's light and ethereal vocal style and this is a belter of a track. God of No Faith, however, seems a bit misguided in it's use of melo-death vocals which sound horribly out of place here, in what is otherwise a strong track. The rest of the album is pretty good, varying from hulking doom to trip-hop influenced Doomgaze of a kind that may be an attempt to woo a wider audience to the band's sound.
Overall, despite a couple of issues such as the aforementioned God of No Faith and the fact that Gwyn Strang's vocals are sometimes a little too sweet-sounding, I would hail the album a success and a bit of a step up from the EP.

In the Hours Beneath is a cocktail made from equal parts good quality atmospheric black metal and post-rock, with just a dash of death doom to add a bit of spice, then shaken and served ice cold.

Ukrainians 1914's debut is a blackened death doom journey through various aspects of The Great War with songs about Verdun, Gallipoli, gas attacks at Ypres and Zeppelin bombing raids on London amongst others. Interesting though I find these subjects as a military history buff, it's the music that counts and there is certainly no need for concern on that point. After the Long Way to Tipperary intro, Gasmask's downtuned death doom riff kicks in, and the assault begins. The album is peppered with several contemporary sound clips that serve as sharp contrast to the modern metal extremities being perpetrated. The majority is quite pacy death doom with blackened vocals and some black metal guitar work, but there is also some out and out blackened death as in second track Frozen in Trenches and Caught in the Crossfire. The riffs are killer - check out the main riff to Verdun - and the performanes are tight. A slight criticism would be that I would prefer a bit more bottom end to the production but, truly, this is a minor quibble. Imagine Bolt Thrower, Asphyx and Marduk all jamming together in remembrance of WWI and you might have some approximation of what to expect.

The 1980s thrash scene gave us some of metal's all-time great albums. However, I only found Overkill to be a functional thrash outfit and re-listening to this so many years on hasn't changed that conviction one iota. I have always found their medium-paced thrash to be uninspiring musically and their songs, in the main, are fairly bland. I dislike the oft-times screeching sub-AC/DC vocals and I can't shake the notion that what Overkill really wanted to be was a good old classic metal band in the vein of Priest or Maiden and jumped aboard the thrash gravy train to gain some exposure. Of course I have no proof that this was the case and may be doing the band a grave disservice, but from the evidence of their music this is the impression I get. Now, this isn't one of those truly awful records as they do have some talent and when they do get it right as on closing track Evil Never Dies their thrashing is not too bad. They seem best though when moving away from out and out thrash. The ten minute Playing With Spiders / Skullkrusher and it's almost doom metal pacing and the slower build-up of the Maiden-esque title track are when the album sounds best in my opinion. So the problem with Overkill for me is the apparent attempt to squeeze their square peg into a round hole.

I constantly vacillate between this and Reign in Blood as to which is my favourite thrash album of all time. I think it probably depends on my mood at the time. To Mega Therion holds a special place in the metal pantheon for me, however. I was a relatively new convert to thrash metal back in 1985 and picked this up mainly because of it's Alien-like H.R.Gieger cover, knowing nothing of the band itself, other than they were a Swiss thrash band (probably gleaned from a Kerrang! article, back when they still had decent taste).
After the bombastic intro of Innocence and Wrath, I was completely blown away by the downtuned riffs of The Usurper/Jewel Throne duo, which was the heaviest fucking thing I had ever heard at this point and sounded as if Tony Iommi had been possessed by some Sumerian demon that had been let loose upon the earth. Tom G. Warrior's evil-sounding vocals and trademark "death grunts" only adding to the impression. To my unsuspecting ears, this album was like a metal version of The Exorcist - and I had let it into my house!
Dawn of Megiddo is virtually doom metal and an early indicator of where CF would ultimately end up. Then from Eternal Summer, via Circle of the Tyrants and (Beyond The) North Winds to Fainted Eyes is a solid thrash attack that is a lot faster than it appears, the downtuning of the riffs making it seem less aggressively paced than it actually is. Tears in a Prophet's Dream is a short, eerie ambient soundscape that sets up closing track Necromantical Screams with it's huge-sounding tympani drums and weird spirit-like backing vocals it sounds like it should be played in some ancient, decadent emperor's court.
This really was completely unlike any other metal release I had heard before and cemented Celtic Frost as one of my favourite metal bands, despite several subsequent attempts to piss me off! A unique band and a true 80's classic.

This German thrash three-piece released their debut, Infernal Overkill in '85, the same year as fellow countrymen Kreator's Endless Pain and Sodom's In the Sign of Evil EP. That album wasn't anything like as good as those. A year later Destruction released the follow-up, Eternal Devastation, the same year as Sodom's Obsessed by Cruelty and Kreator's Pleasure to Kill, losing out miserably to their cohorts once more.

I used to like this a bit more (probably when I had less to compare it to), but now it just sounds shabby to be honest. There's a few good riffs for sure, but the guitar tone sucks, the playing is far too loose for really great thrash and the vocals are shockingly poor. Schmier's normal gruff singing is OK, but what the hell are those dumb squeals every other line? Instead of a really well-honed machine like the very best thrashers, Destruction sound more like a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs.

I'm no fan of this style of brutal / technical death metal. The staccato nature of most of the songs and the "wild boar on heat" vocal style leaves me cold, coupled with the OTT satanist aesthetic I really couldn't get into this at all.

Prior to listening to this album for the 80's Thrash challenge, Kat had made little to no impact on my personal musical radar. Whenever their name came up I always vaguely associated it with The Great Kat and so consequently gave them a wide berth. And, in all honesty, despite missing out for many years on any number of great bands and albums due to preconceived prejudices, I really don't feel I've been deprived by avoiding Kat. This is mostly medium-paced thrash with heavy metal stylings that seems sorely lacking in great tunes and even at one point threatens to go into full-on metal ballad mode. It mostly fails to excite and I would firmly place this in the lower second-tier of 80's thrash along with bands like Flotsam and Jetsam. And no, this is nothing to do with the lyrics being in Polish as anyone who is even remotely familiar with my music taste will attest! Now I'm sure there are people who think Kat are the real deal and the Big Four are dirty poseurs and good luck to 'em, but this band and this album just aren't for me.

By the time of the release of their 1989 classic, Sodom had left their early Venom-worshipping satanic black / speed metal style behind and had turned to full-on thrash metal with an (anti-)war theme. Coming off the back of '87's awesome Persecution Mania, the classic Sodom line-up of Tom Angelripper, Frank Blackfire and Chris Witchhunter managed to maintain the momentum with yet another of Europe's all-time great thrash albums.

This is a perfectly executed record and every single participant is spot on in their performance. Angelripper's bass drives the songs along mercilessly and while his vocals, in common with most thrash singers, aren't going to give Rob Halford or Bruce Dickenson sleepless nights, they are perfectly suited to the tone of the album, with their gruff rasping style. The drums are clean, on-point and the fills are fantastic. Blackfire's thrilling riffs are precise and his solos incendiary, a really underrated guitarist in the metal world in my opinion. This is absolutely a band on top of their game. The songwriting is excellent, with tempo changes that add some variation to the tracks without detracting from the album's overall aggression. The Vietnam War theme has always resonated with me too, being a bit of a military history buff to boot, especially with the album being released hot on the tail of movies like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill.

I have to admit that over the years I probably haven't given Testament the credit they deserve, dismissing them as just another Megadeth / Exodus knock-off. I'm returning to them now after many years and have to admit that this, their debut, is one hell of a great record. The riffs are classic thrash chuggers and Alex Skolnick's solos are scintillating and vibrant, guaranteed to make your neck hairs stand on end! Chuck Billy's vocals are great, particularly for a thrash singer, with a versatility few vocalists in the genre could equal. On the downside,  the production could be better, the bass in particular seems to have got buried in the mix somewhere.

And then there's the songs. There's some anthemic tracks on here, such as The Haunting, Alone in the Dark and Do or Die, which surely has one of the most singalong choruses in thrash. There really isn't a duff track during the entire 38 minutes which, by the way, is virtually the perfect length for such a high octane thrash album. Just goes to show, it's never too late to re-evaluate music that may have previously underwhelmed you. Sorry guys!

I was a huge fan of Maine duo Obsidian Tongue's last full-length, 2013's A Nest of Ravens in the Throat of Time. Since that album was released Falls of Rauros drummer Raymond Capizzo has joined mainman Brendan Hayter as replacement for original skinsman Greg Murphy. The almost seven year wait certainly seems worth it as this is even more epic than Nest of Ravens. The black metal riffing is spot on and Hayter varies between his BM shrieks and calm, clean vocals, both of which are excellent and a cut above the majority of black metal acts. The production really adds a nice depth to the sound and the songwriting is spectacular, with plenty of textural and temporal changes, engaging the listener with genuine epic story-telling. For my money Obsidian Tongue are one of the great underrated black metal bands of recent times and deserve to be considered along with the likes of Panopticon at the forefront of the atmo-black scene.

This album isn't going to rewrite the Black Metal rulebook. An album of straightforward Atmospheric Black Metal with no gimmicks, no folksy breaks, no haunting female vocals. What you do get is a collection of strong songs performed very well and if you're a fan of the genre there's a lot to enjoy here. The ideal accompaniment to a woodland stroll on a November morning.

This is the Greeks' third full-length and their first in five years. This time around the lyrics are provided by Swedish occultist and author Thomas Karlsson, who formerly provided lyrics for Swedish symphonic death metal outfit Therion. Karlsson also performs the spoken vocals of closing track, GOEH RA REAH: Garm Unchained and his lyrics, as you would guess, are heavily involved with occult subject matter.

Serpent Noir's music is mostly mid-tempo black metal, although they do employ a few tempo changes during songs and can let rip with a good blast when the need takes them. I wouldn't exactly class them as melodic black metal, although they certainly do have some decent melodies, dissonance not really being part of their arsenal here, with a few nods to classic heavy metal in the vein of later Darkthrone. The production is very good, everyone gets the chance to be heard and the songs are well-written and involving. It's great to hear black metal bands that take time to hone their material before releasing a new album rather than churning out releases at an ever-increasing rate with no thought to quality control.

Vio-lence (the hyphen is significant) were another 1980's San Francisco thrash band, forming in 1985 and featuring future Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel along with Eddie Billy, brother of Testament's Chuck, until his departure in 1986. This, their debut was released in 1988 and by then future Machine Head founder, Rob Flynn, had also joined from Forbidden Evil. This delayed release of a full-length made them a little late to the party as far as establishing themselves as a major act to the larger world outside the Bay area, despite, in Flynn and Demmel, possessing a couple of guitarists that were, arguably, comparable to any in the early thrash metal scene. The big drawback for Vio-lence was that vocalist Sean Killian wasn't really very good. His thin, reedy voice didn't really suit the band's out and out aggressive thrash assault.
The seven songs on offer here are heads-down charges through, by this time, fairly established thrash metal tropes, but are still great examples of the style and have a poundingly heartfelt aggression, superb riffs, devastating solos and a really decent production job that allows the drums and bass to be clearly heard as well as the guitars.
The tempo and style of the album sits, I feel, somewhere between Reign in Blood and Among the Living, but with technically better guitarists (although this isn't technical thrash by any means). I genuinely believe that with a more competent singer, this would be an album that could quite happily sit in most people's lists of top thrash metal albums. Me, I can forgive it and love it warts and all, but I can sympathise with anyone who can't get past those damn vocals.

Portuguese epic and thrashy heavy metal that gallops along at a right old clip, but with rather bizarre-sounding vocals that I found immensely off-putting. There are riffs aplenty, however and if you can get past the singing then there's some good tracks on offer here.

I must admit that this is my first exposure to Hungarian Tamás Kátai and his Thy Catafalque project, as I get very nervous around music tagged as avant-garde because, like Oscar-winning movies a lot of it is "worthy" material, but not especially enjoyable - to me, at least. This however, is quite the opposite as I found it ridiculously enjoyable and quite a lot of fun in places, not at all the pretentious, dissonant racket I was expecting. Personally, I would tag this as progressive rather than avant-garde, for me avant-garde has a certain po-faced, academic connotation that is, mercifully, lacking here.
Naiv is an energetic and lively fusion of metal, electronica, Hungarian folk music and classical instrumentation that, despite being nine separate tracks, feels like a continuous piece with many interesting twists and turns. A refreshingly enjoyable take on the more experimental side of metal, that seems to just revel in the joy of music - and that's not an expression I use often when reviewing modern metal albums!

It takes some balls to make a metal concept album, especially when it consists of just one 37 minute track with an environmentalist message (and giant robots), but these guys have made a record that is not just one of my favourite stoner metal albums, but one of my all-time favourites. With some serious grooves and killer riffs it never becomes boring or repetitive. Also a special mention for Ed Cunningham's vocal performance that is probably not what this band are noted for, but here it really hits the spot. If you only ever buy one stoner concept album then make it this one.

Ogre inhabit the no man's land between doom metal and 70s style heavy psych / rock and never more so than on this album, opening with The Future, this is the first of the doomier songs, the other two, Blood of Winter and Cyber-Czar, taking up most of the second half. Hive Mind, Big Man and Judgement Day are a trio of bluesy, boogie-driven, hard rock tracks that definitely wouldn't be out of place on a 1970s heavy rock record, along with the heavy blues rock of King of the Wood. As much as I like Ogre I've got to say this album seems a little disjointed. Sure the individual songs are fine, but as a whole coherent album I'm not convinced.

A brain-meltingly heavy and pained descent through an existential hell that is as bleak and hopeless as anything you're likely to encounter this year. This is Zolfo's debut release since forming in 2016 and they've obviously spent a lot of those four years honing the material to an almost surgical edge. Great songs, assured performances and a hugely desperate atmosphere add up to a young band that have plenty to offer the sludge metal world.

Italians Bretus' 2012 debut is an album of quality trad doom that foregoes the quirkiness so often associated with italian doom metal in favour of a more hard-rock tinged effort. Neatly written songs that don't drag on unnecessarily, tightly performed with good riffs and a decent vocal performance all adds up to a praiseworthy effort.

Dark Angel's second album was released in 1986, the same year as Reign in Blood and it's very much in the same vein as Slayer's classic with it's turbocharged riffs and insane drumming. It's actually a little better on the fret-shredding solos front, although Don Doty's vocals are no match for Tom Araya's evil roar. The production isn't anywhere near as bad as some would have you believe, but it is a little muddy, although not enough to blunt the album's all-out assault on the listener's eardrums.

The four tracks that make up the first side of the vinyl release are a relentless blitzkrieg of thrashing metal mayhem that never lets up, not even for a second, lashing out riffs like laser beams, solos like lightning bolts and Gene Hoglan's thunderbolt drumming might even be better than Dave Lombardo's (I'm just saying). Side two dials the headlong dash back a little and slows the tracks down ever so slightly allowing the listener time to take it in a bit more rather than just trying to keep up. The eight and a half minutes of Black Prophecies shows that they aren't just one-dimensional breakneck thrashers, the uber-chugging of Death Is Certain (Life Is Not) is neck-wrenching and the final sprint through Perish in Flames has everything any self-respecting thrasher needs, crammed into less than five minutes.

Aggressive, exhilarating and evil-sounding this is as near perfect a thrash album as you will hear and one of THE albums that had such a huge influence on the nascent death metal scene. Further proof if it was ever needed that thrash peaked in '86.

Doomraiser have changed their sound a little with this, their fifth full-length. They have shortened their songs somewhat and have incorporated more of a psych influence, which has resulted in a slight lightening of their signature gloom doom, particularly during the first three tracks. Don't misunderstand, this is still very much a doom metal album, particularly the further into it you delve and it isn't a massive departure for the band but more of an evolution that may, incidentally, make them a little more accessible. Personally I liked them just fine before and with tracks like Terminal Dusk and Loathsome Explorer Interpolation the doom is still king in Doomraiser's arsenal, consequently there's plenty for existing fans even as the band reach out to new listeners.

Acid Mammoth indeed, both as heavy and as trippy as the name implies. Sounds like Electric Wizard jamming with Ghost, only heavier. Just like that trip you have when you're convinced that a black hole has formed in the centre of your brain - you know the one - only in album form! A giant magic mushroom cloud of an album - made out of real mushrooms! Anyway, you get the idea.

I have a long relationship with Judas Priest. My first album was Sad Wings of Destiny and I first saw them live on the Stained Class tour. This relationship has been a turbulent affair and, at times, it has become extremely strained. The four albums from Sad Wings.. to Killing Machine are as good as any in metal, but then things went downhill fast - the eighties best forgotten except for Defenders of the Faith, the nineties started well with Painkiller, but then... oh dear! Rob returned and the Priest put out a couple of bloated half-hearted attempts at rekindling the flame and I'd had enough. So here we are in 2020 and this has been out a couple of years now, so I thought I'd give it a go and, you know what, it's pretty damn good. Certainly their best since Painkiller in my opinion. There's some real stormers - the first three out of the gate really let rip and suddenly the years just roll away, Rising from Ruins, Flamethrower, Traitor's Gate all kick ass and, great news for all us aging bastards, this proves that there's life in the old dog yet!

New York trio Grey Skies Fallen's fifth full-length album combines epic doom metal in the vein of Candlemass or Solstice with gothic death doom as practiced by the likes of My Dying Bride or Swallow the Sun to forge a two-pronged crown of triumphantly morbid doom metal. The album has quite a progressive feel with it's changes in tone as it expounds it's future history of a dying world and the initial melancholy resignation of it's last inhabitants that ultimately transforms into anger at those who are seen as being the cause of this ruin. Of course this can be viewed as an allegorical comment on the seeming indifference of the powerful to the fate of mankind as a whole, focussing all their efforts instead to the maintenance of that power - and that is exactly what I think the band intended.

This is a skillfully assembled album that explores doom metal's ability to relate a concept and evince the variety of emotions needed to engage the listener with it successfully and as such must be considered a success.

Some bands that profess to be "technical" thrash hang their hat on their technicality and forget about what makes for great thrash metal. This often results in albums that, although being technically admirable, are somewhat sterile sounding and lacking in punch. Fortunately, this is far from true of Coroner and particularly this, their third full-length album. First of all this album thrashes like a motherfucker with Tommy T. Baron firing off red-hot riffs and rhythms that will set your head a-bangin' and your heart pumping. Those riffs are precise yet are still fired with a passion and aggression that is vital to decent thrash metal and the solos are incendiary with never a note sounding out of place. Ron Royce's rasping vocals are in the vein of "classic" thrash and his basswork is driving and busy, while Marquis Marky's drumming is exemplary throughout (although I would have liked to have heard it a bit higher in the mix).
Interestingly Baron and Marky were once roadies for Celtic Frost, presumably picking up a hint or two from Tom G. Warrior about making interesting yet exhilarating thrash metal records. Weighing in at only 34 minutes this is quite a short album, but I have no problem with that at all, this is a lean, mean thrashing machine and needs no padding. With superb tracks like Die by My Hand, Read My Scars and Tunnel of Pain there is more than enough packed into it's runtime to satisfy even the most demanding metalhead.

I clearly remember coming home late one Friday night and turning on the TV to watch a metal show that was showing on the UK's Channel Four back then, catching the video to Voracious Souls and being completely blown away. I subsequently managed to track down The Ultraviolence and it quickly became one of my favourite thrash albums with not a single dud track in my opinion. It's amazing to think that DA were still teenagers when they recorded it (drummer Andy Galeon was just 15).

The squealing intro to Thrashers kicks us off in supercharged style with a breakneck celebration of thrash itself and we never need to look back from thereon in as one frantic riff after another is torn off. I know vocalist Mark Osegueda isn't to everyone's taste, being a bit high-pitched for some, but I personally think his singing is perfectly fine. The riffs are dynamic and uncompromising, particularly the aforementioned Voracious Souls and the solos are searingly hot laser beams of sound, so what more do you want from an 80s thrash album?

Sadly, Death Angel were never this good again, but the vast majority of metal bands don't even get close to making one album this brilliant, so I'll settle for that.

Probably my favourite Voivod album, this marked the perfect balance point between their earlier anarchic, punkish thrash and their later progressive and technical albums. Snake's vocals would not sound at all out of place on an early 80s UK punk album by the likes of Discharge or GBH, the energy of the tracks also seeming to derive from the chaotic nature of punk, Overreaction being a particular example. The influence of post-punk and progressive acts however had taken a prominent grip on the band's songwriting and the songs were far from predictable with multiple and sudden changes in tempo and rhythm that never allow the listener to get comfortable or complacent as to the direction the songs are likely to take. The science fiction concept running through the album is another staple of prog the band embraced, not only telling a coherent tale throughout the album's runtime, but also a metaphorical critique of society as seen through the band's eyes.

This is a classic and uncompromising vision of thrash metal from a band who seemed immune to the lure of trends and were determined to play whatever the hell they wanted, wherever that may take them.

Sweden's Mindless Sinner have split and reformed a couple of times since their inception in 1981, their most recent hiatus ending in 2014. This is their second album since then and it harks back to the heady days of 1980's twin-lead-attack heavy metal as popularised by Priest and Maiden. Although there's nothing new to hear here it does have a certain infectious quality and I did find myself nodding my head and tapping my toes along with their anthemic-sounding metal ditties.

Calgary thrashers Hazzerd release their second album, Delirium, the follow-up to 2017's reasonably well-received Misleading Evil and I gotta say, this is pretty good too. Old-school thrash metal in the vein of Anthrax's better albums, but with a serious shredder in Toryin Schadlich whose solos come straight out of the Randy Rhodes shred-book. Good-time, hi-octane thrash for those with an inate love of all things heavy metal.