September 25, 2010

Seemingly Endless Time


Death Angel
Act III
1990

Death Angel were of the second wave of Bay Area thrash, and they released three albums in their initial run. Many people love The Ultra-Violence and Frolic Through the Park. I am not one of them. I think both of those albums are decent, with The Ultra-Violence being the better of the two, but neither are on par with records by Exodus, Testament, or many other second- and third-tier thrash bands of the time. They are corny and sloppy at times in a way that is not charming (in contrast, check Exodus's Bonded By Blood, which is both corny and sloppy, and still mops the floor with 99% of other thrash records). But on Act III, Death Angel got their shit together in a huge way, producing one of my favorite thrash records ever. This record is so good that not even the bullshit funk metal on "Discontinued" can bring it down. There are two ballads, and they're both good. I'm sayin! The opening track, "Seemingly Endless Time", sets the tone for this one and shows that these guys are done fucking around. They're tight as shit, firing on all cylinders for the duration (except for the funk shit, obv).

Then they broke up. They regrouped as The Organization, then regrouped again as Swarm (maybe some other time), then finally, in 2004 or so, regrouped as Death Angel. And what did they do next? Release two shitty records.

BUT, against all odds, they released Relentless Retribution this month, and it fucking destroys. There is one shitty ballad (sounds like Nickleback), and a coupl'a songs are a little too chunky and groovy for my tastes, but overall, it's a killer record, full of great thrash riffing and tight-as-shit melodies. So I figured it was appropriate that I celebrate their return to awesomeness by posting their masterpiece (forgiving the funk, obv).

So, again, I know you guys love those first two records. Please explain to me what I'm missing! Why do I love the early Exodus stuff, but not the early Death Angel records?

Act III

7 comments:

keeferooni said...

I was pretty deep into a cassette library when I started the conversion to CDs.

First CD?

This one. Awesome.

keeferooni said...

Haha... Just remembered. A few years later, I bought that The Organization album — on cassette.

I remember it bein' alright, though I don't remember a damn thing about it past that.

DR said...

Hi I downloaded your Showbiz Giants album and the last track "Wake Up & Roar, Bachelor God" cuts off half way through, is there any chance your could upload it.

Nice blog btw, sorry to make my first comment a request, props for the death angel too, as someone wrote in Kerrang! a few years back, it's Thrash with Panache!

cdb said...

Hey DR, thanks for the comment. I reupped SBG for you and replaced the link in the original post. Let me know if you have any more problems. The song isn't cut off on my end, so I'm not sure what happened there.

DR said...

Hi cdb, thanks for replying so quickly, just played it and it works fine, definitely worth the wait, it's like Howl for arseholes (or something) and the canned laughter and oohs are the icing on the cake, what a nasty little song.

I might have had a little faith that you'd get back to me instead of scouring the internet for another copy... I did manage to find one and another album I didn't have on a parent directory, but it was just a complete scam site, asking you to fill in surveys and such, I took it on but then realised it was an impossibility, and even if you could have done all the surveys if you tried to download a track it was a strange computer voice telling you that you needed to convince five other people to sign up as well, curse my mp3 eagerness or my rather feeble brain...that's a few hours I'll never get back.

Anyhoo...in the spirit of giving I found a copy of Andy Kerr's Once Bitten Twice Removed if you're interested:

http://vinilbrule.blogspot.com/2010/05/andy-kerr-once-bitten-twice-removed.html

I've got a better copy of this aswell as the two hissanol albums, I could upload if you wanted, maybe you could put them up on your blog, though you might well have them already, but anyway thanks again!

DR said...

Here you go, a few Nomeansno related items for anyone who'll listen, the last one has nothing to do with NMN but as it's about the only other album I've ever uploaded I might as well post it, hopefully they all work.. this uploading business sure takes ages don't it?

Hissanol - 4th & Back

http://www.mediafire.com/?xog7agc6uya7t77


Hissanol - Making Of Him

http://www.mediafire.com/?pn4v7dbk7aaod9c


Andy Kerr - Once Bitten Twice Removed

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JI7SFQ0T


Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Patio

http://sharebee.com/fc80dcae

cdb said...

Thanks buddy!