Cut Into Pieces

Vengeance Rising
Once Dead
1990

Vengeance Rising were one of the few Christian death metal bands back in the late 80s/early 90s. This is their second album, and I enjoy it immensely. The unusual subject matter really adds to the charm. Roger Martinez's vocals fall into one of my favorite styles for this kind of music, the strained rasp (as compared to the high- or low-growl). Think of Martin Van Drunen of Pestilence/Asphyx/Hail of Bullets and you get the idea. Musically, VR is pretty standard thrashy death metal of the time, but that's not a bad thing by any means.

It's interesting to note that after finding themselves in massive debt, the band split. Martinez reformed with new guys, put out a few more records, and eventually turned his back on Christianity and his earlier evangelical work. As a result, the later Vengeance Rising records feature more traditional satanic and athiest death metal topics, and for some reason his voice moved into that lower growly register. At some point the rest of the band reformed with a different singer, calling themselves Once Dead since Martinez owned the name Vengeance Rising. It's all very convoluted.

Regardless, this is a killer record.

Once Dead

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

Back in the Real World

Xentrix
Shattered Existence
1989


If you ask me, there are 3 reasons why Xentrix never got popular:

1. Their most well-known song is a cover of "Ghostbusters".
2. They're from England (go ahead and name 1 really good English thrash band).
3. Their name is Xentrix. I mean come on.

Anyway, while not consistently great, they can be very good at times, delivering workhorse thrash that sounds not unlike a more generic version of the bay area stuff (Exodus, Testament, and of course Metallica). Solid production too, which is kind of rare for these third-tier thrash bands.

This is their debut. I really think you're gonna like it.

Shattered Existence

Blood I Bleed

Détente
Recognize No Authority
1986

The other day, friend and frequent poster in the comment section here on the blog JoyAnna Banana sent me an e-mail inquiring about metal bands with women in them. Turns out there are a few! Détente featured a woman named Dawn Crosby on vocals, delivering a thrash squeal that would make Nuclear Assault's John Connelly proud. On guitar is a guy named Ross Robinson who made a name for himself in the 90s by producing a bunch of really awful records, including Sepultura's Roots, some Korn records, and Vanilla Ice's forgotten rap-metal record Hard to Swallow (and it was, btw, hard to swallow). Also, one of the drummers for Machinehead was in this band at one point too.

Anyway, their lineup could be described as a revolving door, and Crosby died in 1996. Some version of the band has carried on with a different singer or two, and I think they just recently released another record, but I haven't heard it. This one's pretty good though.

Recognize No Authority

Cattle Mutilation

Rigor Mortis
Freaks
1989

Rigor Mortis featured future Ministry guitarist Mike Scaccia, something that's evident from the first notes on Freaks. Scaccia left Rigor Mortis in 1991 to join Ministry, and he's played off and on with Al ever since (though most notably on Psalm 69). He's an incredibly fast riffer. If you've heard Ministry's "TV Song" or "TV II", then you've heard some signature Scaccia speed. That shit's all over this EP. Also in the ranks is Casey Orr, who you might better know as Beefcake the Mighty from GWAR.

This is a killer thrash record. Get it.

edit: I got a report that the zip was corrupt, so I just re-uploaded it. Someone let me know if there are any more problems.

Freaks

Night of the Swords

The Crown
The Burning
1995

I recently found out that The Crown, one of my favorite Swedish death metal bands, has reformed. They have a new singer, but I'm actually cool with that, because my favorite album of theirs is Crowned in Terror, which features Thomas Lindberg (At The Gates, Disfear, etc) on vocals instead of Johan Lindstrand, who was the band's usual vocalist. They even rerecorded the album w/ Lindstrand on vocals once he rejoined, but that version and the album the did after that just don't have the same oomph the earlier stuff had, in my humble opinion. Lindstrand's post-The Crown band, One Man Army and the Undead Quartet suffers from both a stupid name and boring music.

So anyway, I'm pretty jazzed about a new album from The Crown, and the new vocalist, Jonas Stålhammar of God Macabre, sounds great to me. You can hear samples on their website.

I figured this news was good enough reason to post the band's debut from way back in 1995 when they were called Crown of Thorns. After two albums, another band with the same name got ill about it and our Crown of Thorns lost the thumb war or whatever they used to settle the situation, and thus renamed themselves The Crown.

The Burning

Test the Steel

Powermad
Absolute Power
1989

Here's another prime piece of forgotten thrash for you. These guys are pretty talented, I gotta say. Great rhythms and top-notch wanking on the gitter. Joel Dubay's vocals aren't too far off from Flotsam and Jetsam's Eric A.K., though he tends to alternate the higher-pitched, clearer style vocals with a more traditional 80s gruff thrash vocal style. Powermad is from Minneapolis. Off hand I can't think of another metal band from Minneapolis. I first heard these guys around the time this album came out because they used to advertise in Metal Edge and Circus and those type of magazines, and my old friend Ryan ordered their cassette based on one of those ads. We thought they sounded a lot like Metallica, though I don't necessarily hear that any more.

Hey, you know, listening to this record for some reason reminded me of a conversation I had years ago with my buddy Eric about the difference between thrash metal and speed metal. At the time I maintained that it was a difference in vocals: gruff vocals meant it was thrash, clear or high-pitched vocals meant speed metal. I don't really feel that way any more, and so I ask you: is there any difference between speed and thrash, or are they just two names for the same thing (with speed metal falling out of favor over the years)?

Absolute Power

Realm of Death

Evil Army
Evil Army
2006

Vacation's over, time to get back to stuffing your earholes with tunes. Evil Army's self-titled record is a little more recent than most of the stuff I post, but it's really fantastic, so I'm posting it anyway. Think of a cross between GBH and SOD and you get the general idea. Thrashed out punk with blazing solos; lo-fi death rock played at lightening speeds; however you want to describe it, it's worthy of a headbang.

Evil Army

Souls of Sacrifice

Devastation
Idolatry
1991

If you're a fan of Seasons in the Abyss era Slayer, then download Devsatations's Idolaty right now. Go ahead and skip the next paragraph and come back to it once you've got the download started. If you're not a fan of Seasons in the Abyss era Slayer, then kindly show yourself out.

Corpus Christi, Texas's Devastation never broke through to the big leagues, but the only thing I can figure is that this album sounds too much like Slayer for some people (aside from Rodney Dunsmore's desperate, raspy vocals, which are a far cry from Mr. Araya's bark). This is top-tier playing from a second-tier band. This was their final record, but they reformed a year or so ago and reissued it w/ new artwork and three all-new tracks by the new lineup. I have not heard them, and apparently the remaster job is a real brick of shit. Too bad.

Do yourself a favor.
Idolatry

Killing Kranium

Necropolis
Contemplating Slaughter
1988

When I was in middle school, Necropolis were big shit in the Atlanta metal scene. At least, that was my impression from hearing them on the local metal show and hearing older metal dudes talking about them. I was a little young to ever catch them live. Actually, I think they carried on into the early/mid 90s, but by that time I was too punk to pay attention, so I may've just missed them when I had the chance. At any rate, this is classic third-tier thrash, influenced by Exodus and maybe some early Megadeth. Sloppier and more poorly produced than the big guys, but no less fun. I was listening to this in the car the other day and thinking about the huge divide between the "big four" and the rest of the thrash world in the late 80s. If someone didn't know what thrash was, and you played them Master of Puppets or Reign in Blood or whatever, you'd really be giving them a false impression of the genre. This right here is what most thrash sounded like.

I have no idea how popular this band was nationally, but I suspect not very. But they were played every Friday night on WREKage, the metal show that still airs on Georgia Tech's college station (WREK 91.1).

Contemplating Slaughter

Slammin' Boys

Iceland
Iceland
1990

The band is called Iceland, and the album is called Iceland, so I'm sure you can guess where they were from. That's right, France.

Iceland

Bought and Sold

Prong
Force Fed
1988

Before they turned into a fairly mediocre industrial-metal band, Prong played superb sludgy thrash. I was a huge fan of the Victor/Kirkland/Parsons lineup that made their first three records, and while Troy Gregory was a cool enough guy and a talented bassist (he was Newstead's replacement in Flotsam and Jetsam before he too bailed for greener pastures), the dynamic was lost and the band essentially became an outlet for Tommy Victor. I never liked anything they did after Prove You Wrong, which is where the industrial stuff started. It does have a great cover of The Stranglers' "(Get A) Grip (On Yourself)", though.

But enough about that. Force Fed is bat-shit cool. Listen to "Senseless Abuse". The fast riff will blow your face clean off your head.

Force Fed

Flotzilla

Flotsam and Jetsam
Doomsday for the Deceiver
1986

Flotsam and Jetsam's debut album is top-notch thrash, bolstered by the involvement of Jason Newstead, who not only played bass here but also wrote a good chunk of the songs, lyrics and all. Of course, he would leave shortly after for bigger and better things, and the band's sound never recovered. Their second album is good enough, but what should've been their breakthrough, 1990's When the Storm Comes Down was marred by terrible production and an all-to-serious tone. From then on, it was cult status at best, and like so many other bands from this era, they struggled to find their voice during the darkness of the 90s. I will hand it to them, though; they're one of the few thrash band outside the big four that never split up (Overkill's another one, fyi). There were a few multi-year gaps between albums, but they've been at it in one form or another the entire time.

But anyway, Doomsday is their debut, and it's chock full of speedy rhythms, killer riffage, and Eric AK's oddly clear vocals. I suspect his voice is one of the things that turned a lot of people off from these guys, but it sounds great on this record, where a little cheesy squealing fits in just fine. If "Hammerhead" doesn't knock your socks off, then, man, I don't know what to tell you. Oh, and notice how the beginning of the title track sounds strikingly similar to Motley Crue's "God Bless the Children of the Beast". I'm not making accusations, just an observation.

I bought this on cassette when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and my mom, ever concerned about the influence this stuff was having on me, insisted we listen to it in the car on the ride home. I was sweating bullets, but thankfully there were no obvious references to satan, sex, or dirty words. I lived to head-bang another day, and Flotsam and Jetsam survived the mom test.

This record is essential.

Doomsday for the Deceiver

Oh, and by the way, this is the 20th anniversary remastered version (and it sounds *fantastic*) which features one of the band's demos tacked on at the end.