thrash metal

Things come together very nicely on America Must Be Destroyed, which is the perfect distillation of the styles present on both Hell-O and Scumdogs Of The Universe. At first, America Must Be Destroyed feels like it’s a rawer album, but the reality is that the production, whilst uncompromising, is very well put together. The drums and bass clank away beautifully, the guitars are razor sharp and Oderus sounds brilliant. There are sillier moments (this is…

An improvement in every possible way from Hell-O. Scumdogs of the Universe has a prominent bass backbone; the rhythm section of this thing is tight as fuck, and the production is very similar to a lot of crossover thrash stuff from that era. Whilst leaning far more metal than their previous effort, Gwar’s Scumdogs… is of course far more than just a “crossover” album. There are some absolute classics here, the intro hat trick culminating…

Quite possibly the band’s worst album sleeve for their whole discography? Haha! Outside of the one about angel’s bums, the majority of this record blurs together for me. It is, however, a fairly savage attack for latter-era Impaled Nazarene. It has the crisp production, and the same kind of ferocity that Pro Patria Finlandia has. This one seems to go just as hard as that record, in all fairness.

Walks the line between bad and acceptable, if I’m being brutally honest. There are moments of inspiration but the album is overly long, with bog-standard production and songs that are nowhere near interesting enough to justify their runtimes. Closing track “Katyn” is terrible, leaving a bad taste in the mouth.

Manifest is far from a fan favourite but there is very little that this band has done wrong over the several decades that they have been spilling their sleazy, thrashy black metal out into the world. Therefore, Manifest should not be underestimated. In fact, I prefer it to the previous few albums; the production on this is just far more satisfying IMO, even if the songs are perhaps not as great. It’s a strange balance….

All That You Fear is not as good as the albums that proceeded it and started a lull for the next few releases. It’s one of my least favourite Impaled Nazarene records even though in truth I enjoy them all. This one also has the honour of having one of my favourite IN songs, “Armageddon Death Squad” as the second track. Production is nice and balanced too. Things sound great, I’d just prefer other records…

A marked change in the Impaled Nazarene sound happens around this record. There were signs before, with Nihil, in a maturity in the songwriting process. This course continues further with Absence of War… but into a more thrash metal direction. The finished result is then an extra venomous blackened thrash attack, with plenty of blast beats, fast sections and machine gun double bass kicks. Production is a bit crisper, a bit clearer, and it works…

Now this is fukken thrash metal! Hyper speed, hyper energy, hyper intensity! Tracks like “Mother’s Day” and “Funky Noise” are basically just straight up grindcore, but the intensity doesn’t really let up for the whole record, even in the more sensibly-paced numbers. Production is nice and clear; bass is fantastic and super prominent without dominating the mix; the riffs are balanced well and the drums are hard-hitting as hell. Too many good tracks to mention…

Frantic, high-energy, fast-paced death metal from the time where thrash was giving way to a whole new underground, including stuff like this. The band are firing on all cylinders, but are also playing fast and loose, driven by their intense energy and speed, rather than a coherent, laser-focussed tightness. But that’s OK, this is a death metal from 1988, where precisely this kind of thing is encouraged to flourish. Rabid, rabid stuff – oh, and…

Sextrash built off the er, sex thrash of their previous record with a far more brutal and heavier offering. Funeral Serenade, despite its name and year of release making you perhaps think that this was some cataclysmic, slow doom metal record, is actually a savage assault of the sense that has its roots in what I suppose is a mix of both black and death metal, more so the latter as the second wave hadn’t…

The first thing you’ll no doubt notice about Rotting, at least if coming at the works of Sarcofago chronologically, is that the band really seem to have gotten their shit together musically by this point. This is mostly explained with the presence of a new drummer, but generally the whole band sound far more on point than they did on INRI (not that INRI was bad, not at all). Rotting is thrash at its core…

A cool, fun listen, especially for those who are a fan of Igor Cavalera’s drumming. We get the thrash of olde here but with a bigger, more modern production, which doesn’t always work, but for the purposes of appreciated said drums you’re absolutely laughing! Complaints about the overuse of reverb on the vocals are not without merit, but as someone who listens to a ton of black/war metal I’m totally OK with the reverb vocals….

An interesting (re)creation. For this EP the band have chucked an extra 2 letters into the title, and rerecorded their older songs in a thrasher style, rather than a death metal one. For the most part, to be honest, this works better than I would have thought. The songs have more “go” in them, probably helped by an increase in speed as well as a slightly clearer production. However, unfortunately, the vocals aren’t as good…

Never thought I’d ever hear Quothorn screaming such lyrical ditties as “Eat my shit / Suck my dick” but Octagon exists, and here we are. It is perhaps not hard to see why this album is so reviled compared to the other Bathory records. It’s like a poor man’s Requiem that should actually work on paper, what with the frantic guitar work and song structures and the flurry of drums, but is just a shittier…

A strange side step in the chronological order of Bathory’s evolution. After several records expanding and refining on the Viking themed epic metal, Quothorn side steps his project into a mid-90s mire of sheer sonic brutality. Gone are the epic 10 minute tracks, instead we get an unique brand of super intense thrash metal, where the riffs are so fast they are crazy blurs, where the bass is so loud and clanking that it almost…

I’m no expert on Deceased but credit is due where credit is due: a.) the drumming on this is absolutely fucking fantastic! As a drummer myself I was fucking glued to my headphones for the entire listen (and then the repeat listen lol). Then, of course, there is point b.), which is that Deceased have such an unique personal take on the death metal template. Outside of “the greats”, how rare is that? It’s a…

There’s such a perfect air of rediculousness to Schnauzer that I just can’t help but be in a good mood after listening to it. “Gym Konya” is off his nut, in the most endearing way possible. The tracks here are more of the good ol’ absurdist Ohio “scrap metal” that you would come to expect from the project. RIP dude. This shit is one of a kind! Doktor Bitch (lol) took me by surprise. A…

A mixed bag of metallic styles, unfortunately not all of which stick the landing. When it does work however, Post Mortem’s quirky and unique take on the blending of metal hits like little else. There’s some interesting takes here, and the whole thing warrants multiple listens to get your head around, but the patchwork quilt of successes vs misses may put some people off. A for effort, though.

Forbidden’s vocalist Russ Anderson is cheesy as fuck but let’s not allow that to detract from the fact that this is an excellent thrash record with extremely good production, amazing riffs and solid-as-fuck drumming. I’m not familair with the people who produced this thing but truly it is a marvel of consistent yet punchy sound, delivered perfectly by the band in the first instance, then hammered home by the engineering team. As I eluded to,…

I’m no scholar on the work of Chuck and Death / Mantis, but this noisy rehearsal demo featuring the now legendary line up of Chuck, Rick Rozz and Kam Lee, is nothing but an absolute pleasure to listen to. It is perhaps easy to put this up on a pedestal due to its historical significance, but it is, at the end of the day, a noisy thrash-becoming-death metal demo made by a bunch of very…

Calm Before The Storm marks the point where I first was bitterly disappointed with a Venom album. Gone is Mantis, replaced by “Jim and Mike”. It says a lot about a guitar player if it takes two separate people to replace you, I think. Anyway, Calm… still has Abaddon and most importantly in this regard Cronos, so it is not immediately indistinguishable as a Venom release. After a few minutes however you begin to get…

Nasty little EP from the frantic and chaotic Kreator. The drums are massive on this, and the sound is less messy than what it is on Pleasure To Kill, making Flag Of Hate a concise, short, sharp hit of classic Teutonic thrash.

What can I say about a record this legendary? Pleasure To Kill is a classic of not just the thrash genre but an integral piece of metal music history. The production is clean and whilst I wouldn’t go as far as to call the band’s playing sloppy, there is definitely a youthful energy to their work here that is barely contained. It feels like each song wants to go racing off as fast as possible,…

Cunnilingus and hardcore punk brought us to this! It says a lot about your relationship with a band when one of your favourite albums by them is a covers album but fuck it, Undisputed Attitude is the shit. Slayer are angry as fuck and it translates perfectly into the world of hardcore punk. They absolutely fucking kill it here. (As a side note I totally didn’t need to hear Tom Araya singing about putting his…

Seasons In The Abyss is an amalgamation of the previous few Slayer albums. Good thing that these albums are some of metal’s all-greats, so Slayer retreating old ground here is not necessarily an awful thing in this case. I think they got away with rehashing stuff here for the first and only time, only because the quality of the songs are still very, very high. There are signs of the not-so-great groove / nu metal…

I’m just gonna say it: Slayer were way cooler when they did Bathory-esque metal (pre-Bathory metal, even!). I’ve coined it “evil Slayer” (original, I know) and it’s better than “thrash Slayer”, “nu metal Slayer” and “legacy band releasing shit for the sake of it Slayer” all put together (thrash Slayer is pretty cool though). I’m obviously breaking bawls here but fuck this shit rules so hard. In layman’s terms this is Slayer’s Kill ‘Em All,…

An excellent set, featuring some of Voivod’s best tunes, and – of course – their Pink Floyd cover. The sound is a bit flat in places but generally the production is very well balanced, especially between Chewy and Rocky. Snake sounds just like he does in the sound, it’s uncanny.

I’m not gonna lie to you, chief. I have zero fucking clue who or what Ultraman is. I can only assume, this being Voivod, that it is some sort of obscure sci-fi movie or TV show. I did not expect, in any universe or pocket dimension, to ever hear Snake singing in Japanese. Sometimes even a band like Voivod, where you should expect the unexpected, continues to out-pace my imagination. Fair play. But yeah, these…

Of all the tracks from The Wake, “The End Of Dormancy” is far from the best, the first few minutes of it even being tedious, not a word I would often use to describe Voivod’s music, but here we are. The version of the track here, with the additional brass sections, is a fun experiment, but not one that I feel really pays off. The track doesn’t really get interesting until mid-way through and even…

You gotta love it when bands release EPs that almost reach LP status due to their run time. Voivod is one such band; a band that is always bestowing onto us the most interesting and engaging dystopian metal gifts. Post Society is no different. Come for the off-kilter sci-fi thrash, stay for the Hawkwind cover (yes!). As always with the “modern” era of Voivod, production is fantastic and everyone is performing on point. This EP…

Early Kreator is such a treat. It’s not totally dissimilar to early Sodom, but nowhere near as messy. Endless Pain is a fucking wild dose of thrash, however. Production is a bit thin (it probably sounds better on vinyl) but it’s not unworkable and the songs are just absolute classics.

I hate to break it to you, chief, but the vocals on this one, they are uhhh, not good. That aside, I feel like I’m listening to my mate’s band rehearse in one of their parent’s garages. I get it, it’s a vibe.

Like latter era Death on intramuscular steroids, getting into a fight with Nocturnus at a Voivod gig. Voivod have stopped their show to watch the fight unfold in as near silence as a fight can happen. The Voivod guys are having brewskies and a sneaky joint. “It’s not bad, eyy?” Asks Snake from Voivod to nobody in particular, but his colleagues and audience are too enthralled by the chaotic mess unfolding before them.

Schnauzer is a trip, as always. Not sure what I can add here that I’ve not already said before, but solid, chugging Ohio “scrap metal” underpins the various outpourings of madness that Jim puts us through. Sloth is a bit more disjoined, with samples and dare I say “acoustic” passages meandering between blurs of manic noisecore and more uhh “traditionally” paced songs of varying styles and genres. All in all, a fun split that doesn’t…

The similarity in name to both Voivod and Vektor cannot be a coincidence. By the time you reach the third or forth track, all doubt is gone. Terrifically intricate, maddeningly technical, but drowning in compression and triggers and on top of that, incredibly unoriginal. Top musicianship, but not very interesting.

Man that cover art is eye-catching as fuck. I’ve kinda become desensitised after years of listening to grindcore and death metal but there’s something about this one that just hits you right on the “disturb.exe” button (or is that “disturb.dmg”?). Anyway, this shit pares down the harsher elements of crust punk like Doom, Discharge etc and fills the void with the harsh, deep tones more associated with thrash and early death metal. The d-beat roots…

I’m no Megadeth expert so what I can offer here is only going to be fraction of what other writers can and have already put down, so I’ll keep this brief. Thrash, innit. Rust In Peace is an extremely well produced album, to the point where you could time a watch to these songs. Even if Mustaine’s voice is an acquired taste, this thing fucking seriously rips. Production wise, the whole thing is in perfect…

Feel like I’m about to come on here and throw down a J-Dawg style rant about the botched fucking digital release of this shit. Whichever asshat uploaded this to streaming services has ripped it straight from a tape or busted up vinyl copy by the sounds of it – it sounds like complete dogshit. I have the vinyl too and I’m fucking positive that it didn’t sound this bad. But hey, it’s been a minute……

Yo dawg I heard you liked Voivod! So we sounded like Voivod! Haha! To be fair, its easy to compare anything with dissonant riffing and space / sci-fi themes to the legends that are Voivod. I could say Droid sound like Voivod (which I just have) as much as Vektor sounds like Voivod, but of course Vektor and Droid sound nothing alike. Hopefully you can see where I’m going with this? (Perhaps not, I’ve had…

What a hidden gem! One that not only rewards those who go exploring “off the beaten track” as it were, but one that continously rewards its listeners upon repeat visits. On the face of it, Aspid are a typical thrash metal band, but you can peel back the layers on this thing and unravel some amazing technical feats. The drumming in particular is my favourite but this whole thing hangs in the balance of exquisite…

Arrrrghhhh both versions of this thing are fucking savage as fuck. Raw, loose, infectious, terrifying fucking metal, just the way it is supposed to be. Think I prefer the dryer mix (not sure which one was released in which order sorry) rather than the drenched-in-echo Venom-esque mix, but both are well worth your time.

For a black metal record, Blood Fire Death sure doesn’t half thrash hard! (I’m messing around, but damn does this thing go hard in parts). Nothing really hits the spot like Bathory (except maybe one of a thousand Bathory clones), here the band takes two approaches: one of building thrashing walls of whirlwind speed and another of conjuring powerful, hypnotic grooves. Both of these things are then pulled together into a dense production job, giving…

Agathocles are once against testing my hearing, seemingly deliberately wanting to give their listeners tinnitus with the mixes on their EPs. Honestly, the songs sound absolutely great but fuck this production all the way to hell. Anyone have an address so I can post some of this treble back to the band? Jesus fucking Christ. Nunslaughter on the other side of this disc are absolutely fucking excellent, bringing two songs of grinding, thrashing sonic carnage….

The first Carnivore album probably isn’t as good as the second but it’s still a pretty solid album. Some of the doomier riffs are fantastic, despite the trashy nature of the album in general. You can tell from the off that it has that unique Pete Steele sound, not to play down the other members. There is plenty of hay-wire ideas here, as well as strange interludes and takes on things (the chilled bongo sections…

Messy, nasty, horrible metal cranked up to 11. You can feel the youthful energy of this thing overflowing throughout the whole record; be it in the raspy vocals, the crazy guitars or the sloppy, scattered drums. This is like combining early Possessed and early Venom in that machine from The Fly and turning it up to 666%. I.N.R.I. almost sounds to me like the accidental template for “war metal” (stuff like Beherit, Blasphemy and more…

Silly but very, very entertaining blackened thrash back from the days when blackened thrash wasn’t really a thing outside of Venom, and to be honest, Bulldozer is so much more than a Venom clone. Labelling them as such merely does them a disservice. The production is rough but serviceable, and the music has that looseness to it that only adds to proceedings, rather than coming across as sloppy and useless. The subject matter is a…

Really solid, high-energy and modern-sounding crossover thrash from grimm and frostbitten VVales. Production is super clear and the playing is super tight. There’s no fucking about at 4 tracks in length either: in, out, job done. Gonna keep an eye on these guys for sure.

Nowhere near as bad as people are making it out to be, but still lacking in spark and originality, that’s for sure.When I first heard the tracks that the band dropped in anticipation of this record, to me they sounded overcompressed, synthetic and false. Lars’ drums sounded quantised to all hell, and James’ vocals were autotuned to death. I understand my man James is pushing 60, but y’know, idk, fuckin’ Michael Gira doesn’t use autotune….

I’m a listen to a demo in it’s original form kinda guy, but Demon Entrails is one of the exceptions, as it pulls together a pile of Hellhammer OG demos into one compilation. I mean, that’s what demo compilations do, right? LOL I’m not sure what it is about this that I prefer to listen to over the originals, but I think it has something to do with the seemingly endless amount of old shit…

Since I discovered this album about ten years ago, there has been a war raging inside my head: is this the greatest album cover of all time or the absolute worst album cover of all time? Honestly, like, what the fuck? Hahahah As for the sound, I rather enjoyed the 90s industrial-influenced incarnation of Voivod. The new influences don’t overtake the sound, except for moments here or there (closer “DNA” being the biggest culprit, and…

Caught these guys live with Napalm Death recently so wanted to check out some of their stuff beforehand. I gotta say, off the bat, this stuff is not for me, so take my review with a pinch of salt. I don’t really like the whole bear cult act thing, and honestly, you can get better party thrash stuff done elsewhere. Join The Bear Cult is not awful, the musicianship is faultless, and the production is…

Synchro Anarchy is another amazing offering from Canada’s legendary Voivod. The fact that these guys are even still going is nothing short of a miracle. They seem to have been on something of a Killing Joke-esque latter-career renaissance since Target Earth; forging the chaotic and dissonant madness of their 80s output with modern production and a sharper yet more mature streak. I do understand why some fans have started to say that Voivod are falling…

Early Voivod records are a treatment in pure blunt sonic force. Sure, the weirdness was there right from the start, but didn’t start developing properly I would say until the record that came after this one. However, Rrroooaaarrr is absolutely worth your time and it’s probably one of the hardest (if not the hardest) Voivod record. It just comes at you, in it’s little weird alien tank thing, and it comes at you guns blazing….

The Sepultura Bestial Devastation session is amazing. In fact, I would even perhaps go out on a limb and say that I prefer the sound here to that on offer on Morbid Visions. As far as proto-Sepultura goes, it doesn’t get any better than this. Old school evil thrash in all of it’s glory. As far as Overdose goes… I tried, I really tried. I didn’t want to be another one of those people who…

After a few listens I gotta just admit to myself that I prefer Morbid Visions. However, Schizophrenia is notable for the decent step up in production, and the incredible progress that Igor Cavalera makes as a drummer is outstanding. Couple this two things together and you’ve got a backbone for an amazing metal record (the drum fills are to die for). I just prefer the songs on other records. No shade though, this is really…

You gotta love Sepultura, especially looking back now at how far they have come and how much they have changed. From 2023, this release sees them as almost unrecognisable. The trademark thrash of the earlier days began in earnest with their second record, Schizophrenia; the looser metallic grind of Morbid Visions is more in-line with something like Bathory and Venom. There’s just something so pure and blazing about the way Sepultura perform metal however, and…

The temptation to refer to this record as Gwar Party is never ending. Anyways, this is as solid as a Gwar record can get. After the 90s the band adopted this long-form storytelling thrash metal angle that ran more or less until the demise of Brockie. This thing is seriously sharp, if you can look past the gimmick.

Absolutely banging thrash that doesn’t let up from the start to the finish. Really lovely production too, where everything is clear and day and the drums pop through nicely. Disgusted to say that after 20+ years of being a metalhead this is the first time I’ve heard Tankard.

I have absolutely zero clue where I picked this recommendation up, but its been on the to-do list for a few years. Viscous Attack is an excercise in mid-80s thrash, I guess where the genre was finally coming into its own away from the speed metal tag. I’m no metal scholar, but that’s where I place this stuff anyway. Honestly, I figured this was out of Brazil or something (it really gives me that vibe)…

Wow, I slept on this fucker. I thought this was a new record! D’oh! Opening track “Breath Grease” is one of my favourite MW thrashers – it bolts straight out the gate and lets you know what you are in for. If you’ve heard these guys before then you surely know whats coming here. That’s not to say this is rehashed or boring, I’m just prepping you in regards to: expect some of the best…

Voïvod have a special place in my heart. They’ve slowly grown from the Lost In Space of thrash to idk, the 2001: A Space Odyssey of thrash. Ha! Is it derivative at this point to pull together a bunch of purposefully dissonant riffs and awkward tempo changes and call it sci-fi thrash? The answer is, of course, fuck no. Especially if you’re Voïvod. For me, I feel the band have been on something of a…

There’s a firmly drawn line between “evil” Slayer and “angry” Slayer, and this 80s classis is of course firmly in the “evil” camp. For me, its not as good as South Of Heaven or Reign In Blood but damn this is some sinister thrash right here. Stand out track? Fuck it, just play the whole thing through in one go and be done with it.

inb4 dat bass tho. It was a wild choice mixing this thing the way they did, but for better or worse Metallica achieve one of the most immediately recognisable production sounds in the history of metal music. The story goes they were raging from the death of Cliff, and with newbie Jason Newsted, they shat out this super dark, heavy, angry and bleak album. Saint Anger around my neck, right? This was the first Metallica…

There’s something about Ghoul’s cheeky thrash-tinged metal that always makes me feel like I need to get some sort of party going. Its not quite in the realm of beer and/or pizza thrash, instead being somewhat slightly more sinister, but the songs on Transmission Zero are bouncy enough to open any mosh pit.

Super fun, mosh friendly, almost skater-influenced thrash from the legends that are Wehrmacht. Is it as good as Biermacht? Probably not, but it’s cut from the same cloth, as it were. Good stuff, for when you absolutely must thrash out on the beach. Just don’t forget the beer.

Vektor are onto some mad shit. If you’ve never heard ’em, imagine mixing Voïvod with latter Death and you are on the right track. Everything is super intense and technical, the vocal screeching and rabid. Finally, the maddening sci-fi edge just rounds the whole thing off nicely. Like a thrashy version of Cryptic Shift.

I was turned on Hirax after seeing them life at OEF and being blown away by their chaotic grinding thrash. Noise Chaos War is a fine example of this, being something of a compilation, and churning out absolute noise chaos for its entire duration. If the music wasn’t aggressive enough, the vocals take it over the edge, making these guys stand out from a ton of other thrash bands.

Urrrgh! Been on a bit of a Gwar kick lately, and this is yet another quality offering from the bands 00s output. Its not as good as Beyond Hell (what an album) but its still got some absolute corkers on it. One of the highlights for me is the final track, which is a fitting tribute to the life of Cory Smoot. What makes it extra heartbreaking is that Dave Brockie would also pass on…

Sodom are such a good fucking band. Agent Orange is probably their most well known album, and for good reason. Being one of the “big four” of the German thrash bands, Sodom have influenced countless metal musicians the world over. Their punky thrash is often imitated, but there’s no better example of it than here on this little blast of goodness.

Fuck, how good is this? Easily the best later Gwar record with Oderous on vocals, and thats tough competition. There really is so much more to Gwar than the gimmick and this record is the perfect example. Technical, concept-heavy thrash, with insane vocals and incredible instrumentation. One of the best thrash records I’ve heard in a while. RIP Oderous and Cory.

No Life ‘Til Power is, I believe, some sort of bootleg or unofficial compilation of tracks taken from the early years of Metallica and shoe-horned into a fake full length album. I took a dive into this on the cover art alone, knowing next to nothing about pre-Kill ‘Em All Metallica. I guess some of these tracks are supposed to be on demos like Metal Up Your Ass and so on? (2021 edit: bro, it…

Riley Gale from Power Trip, another one gone too soon! RIP my friend. I will take this brief moment however to remind everyone just how fucking great Power Trip are, and in particular their 2nd album Nightmare Logic, a dark, chunky production taking the template of crossover thrash to exciting new places.

Seemingly revered, but I’m not really vibing this. It sounds like any old band rehearsing in their garage. The riffs are awkward and the band doesn’t seem to gel all that well. The quality of a lot of cult demos is questionable, but this is just plain rubbish. Sorry. (Edit: this may seem very harsh a review, and this record isn’t as bad as I’m making out, absolutely not. But, its not for me)

Good ol’ Annihilator. Sometimes you just need to reach for the cheesy metal, and this nasty little thrash record has cheese in spades. The acoustic intro is a little too Metallica (not that they have a monopoly on widdly acoustic intros to trash records, but still) but the music thereafter is nothing but a pleasure to listen to. The lyrics are hammy as fuck but the music is not to be fucked with. Please try…

Outside of the “big four”, Municipal Waste was probably the first real thrash band that I got into. Their beer-soaked antics, which also proudly boasted hardcore punk influences, resonated with the battle jacket wearing metal fiend that I was at 19 years old. The Art Of Partying is a perfect example of that crazy sound, the ultimate party thrash vibe. The late 00s thrash revival didn’t quite go to plan, but Municipal Waste stood the…

Punishing heavy thrash from the legends that are Sepultura. For the most part growing up I only ever really associated Roots with Sepultura. It was only in later years that I went back and discovered their earlier 80s/90s output, which is of course savage as fook and all of which are now mostly metal classics. Beneath The Remains is no different. It is a perfect example of the band’s earlier output, and a stunning thrash-tinged…

Target Earth was the first Voïvod record that I ever heard, asides from a few minutes of Dimension Hatröss when I was a younger gentleman (Lies! I was never young!). Target Earth is also the first record that allowed me to “get” Voïvod’s bizarre brand of sci-fi thrash. Expect the usual wailing guitars, robotic vocals and odd time signatures, but of course, with Voïvod, always expect the unexpected. A fantastic progressive metal adventure.

Without looking back it is sometimes easy to forget just how brutish and blunt a weapon early Voïvod was. Before the trademark dissonance and progressive science took over the band’s mesmerising songwriting, the band purveyed an interesting blend of unforgiving thrash metal. Sure, compared to some other efforts, the production is somewhat lacking, but I find that the unpolished, rugged edges to War And Pain add to the aural assault on the senses, much in…

An absolute classic of the thrash genre, but it is also so much more! Voivod are the Swiss army knife of the thrash metal world, and Killing Technology pinpoints the turning point, where Voivod’s primitive, brutal thrash morphed significantly into something far wider and more experimental in scope.

Building on the strong debut of Kill ‘Em All, Metallica, ahem, electrify their sound with new found depth and songwriting chops. The compositions on Ride The Lightening are, for the most part, dense and experimental (for thrash at least), and possess a new level of maturity. This is a sound that Metallica would arguably perfect on Master Of Puppets, but Ride has it’s own set of incredible tracks. “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “The Call…

Megadeth’s first record is full of vitriol, hate and boundless energy. Its quite sad that Mustaine’s entire career has been a case of trying to one-up Metallica, but off the mark with Killing Is My Business…, it certainly shows that there are far worse motivations than this kind of thing. The album is fast and fairly heavy. I can’t get my head around the Megadeth “version” of “The Four Horsemen” but that’s a small price…

Did someone say proto-thrash? You can literally smell the BO when listening to this record. I conjure images of a band of spotty teenagers or twentysomethings playing Flying Vs and wearing cut off shirts; performing before a crowd of greasy-haired, denim jacket wearing beer drinkers bumping into each other in time to the music. Metal is a beautiful thing, isn’t it? A lot of the “bigger” bands either seem to come out blazing; defining their…

Power Trip has been on my to do list for fucking years. I have no shame in saying that it was the grisly reminder of Ryan Gale’s untimely death that led me to finally taking this record and listening to it. I can only offer my condolences to his friends and family; he seemed well liked and of course loved, and after listening to this record I can attest that he was a brilliant front…

How does one critique an album like Reign In Blood? I often ask that of myself when I start to write about something that is often considered legendary, timeless or even just historically important in regards to the genre at hand. This time, the genre is thrash metal, or arguably even just metal as a whole, and the impossible album to analyse is Slayer’s magnum opus. I’ve never really been that big a fan of…

A discussion at work about the greats of thrash metal led me to streaming this Kreator stormer. I’ve seen the cover for Coma Of Souls many times but had never actually checked out the record until now. Noticeably more progressive than the glorious Pleasure To Kill era, but doesn’t lay off with the savagery either. Kreator’s solos are just to die for. A pleasure to… listen haha

Master of puppets pulling your strrrrings! Realising I hadn’t done an entry for this was a strange one. It is, of course, a classic. I treated myself to a spin of the remaster recently when I was at the gym and was surprised at how good it sounded. I’ll have to do a side by side listen one day to see what the differences are, but in all honesty I was just glad for the…

Ughhhhhh! Voïvod is like a cigar; when you come across it, it tastes like complete shit. After a while though, you start to realize how fucking brilliant and nuanced they can be. These days I look on Voïvod in a whole new light. Dimension Hatröss is one of the best records in their large repertoire.

Sextrash play raunchy, messy thrash metal that verges on the edges of insanity. Think Sacrilege, or Hirax, with the “attitude” of Motley Crue and the production approach of a 90s death metal cassette demo. It is honestly, a weird mix. It is almost as if the style of music does not match the cover art that the band have chosen, which I cannot decide is either one of the coolest sleeves I’ve seen or one…

….And that was it; November 2016 marked a turning point into my journeys through metal – November is the month when I finally *got* Voïvod. (March 2019 edit: shows how long it takes for me to get around to posting half of these reviews, eh?) I don’t know where this random enlightenment spawned from, but asides from the records they did in the 90s with Eric Forrest as frontman, I have always struggled to digest…

It’s thrash-o-clock here at Lines in Wax! Its not often that I spin a thrash record, but when I do, you’d best be sure that it is a nasty thrash sound. Sodom always hit the spot every time, and I was reminded to write a little bit about them after catching them live briefly back in November. Tapping The Vein is a solid, denser-than-dark matter metal record, with a tight, condensed production and a dry,…

Ahhh, the twisted and wonderful world of Vektor; coming across like a mix between Voivod and Dragonforce, and packing a vocalist that sounds like Chuck Schuldiner on crystal meth. I’m not really into this breed of hyper-thrash, but the sci-fi elements and the incredible density to the proceedings really adds a whole new edge to things. This is incredibly precise, dream-like yet lightening-fast metal, as if Devin Townsend drank too much coffee and smoked heroin…

It has taken me so long to review this album that the follow up came out recently (2016’s Agony). That is pretty shameful, as I have been pretty stoked about this bunch of Brazilian thrashers since catching them at 2015’s Obscene Extreme. Nervosa are an all-female act, and it is incredibly refreshing to not see this used to their “advantage” as some sort of gimmick or selling point. Victim Of Yourself has the perfect production…

Bulldozer are a ridiculous thrash band from Italy. They have been broken up for quite a while, but they played Obscene Extreme a few years ago and this turned me on to them. They keep parading that some dickhead Kerrang! journalist labelled them as the worst band in the world (like anyone ever gave a fuck what Kerrang! thinks anyway) and with a history of songs about pornstars and terrible experimental techno records, I can…

Lahar is a thrashy, hardcore-tinged band from the Czech Republic (I believe thrashcore is the preferred term) and Umění Strachu is their second album (third if you count the original demo, which has a fair amount of songs on it). It kinda has a skate-punk feel to it, which mixes oddly with soaring melodies and more traditional metal parts to form an unique brew of styles. Considering I saw these guys as Obscene Extreme, this record isn’t…

I dunno the last time I listened to a Gwar record all the way through. In fact, I dunno the last time I even attempted to listen to a Gwar record in the first place! Ever since Oderus’ untimely death last year I’ve been meaning to check out more Gwar stuff – simply because they are one of my favourite live bands ever, and I feel like I haven’t given them a proper chance. Dave…

I’ve never really been into Voïvod. I even tried to witness the band play all of Dimension Hatröss at Roadburn Festival 2012, which is hosted in Tilburg’s 013, a venue with arguably the best sound in the world, and I still couldn’t get into it. I just don’t get it – is it thrash? Is it prog wankery? Is it a tired display of both? Phobos though, blew my fucking head off. It works better…

I don’t particularly find this record exciting in any way . As far as middle of the road, no frills thrash goes, Re-Animator have got it down to a tee. I’m sure that there is a bunch of metalheads out there who love this, without question, but the reason this is in my collection actually has nothing to do with the music on the disc. It is there because of its artwork. The artwork was…