I completely forgot I was meant to be reviewing this. I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t listening to it repeatedly, what I’m saying is that it has such an 80’s thrash sound to it that it was easy to think it was an old familiar album that I’d just thrown onto repeat on MusicBee. Well this German quartet, okay drummer Cauê Dos Santos is Brazilian but the four of them are currently in Germany, formed in 2010 and have released a demo, EP and début album with ‘Heavy’ being their second. As stated they are most definitely a thrash band with plenty of hyper-fast leads and straight forward tempos and the characteristic German vocals used by the likes of Destruction, Sodom and Tankard.
The album opens with “To Thanatos (Fumigation from Manna)” where the instruments are gently roused for the first minute then Jerry A. Düren’s guitar gets a little more frantic, forcing Cauê to increase the intensity of his snare pounding and making Ulli Hoffmann keep time with his kick drums on the bass. Hans H. Hornung’s rapid vocals have no problem keep pace with the rest of the band as he joins the fray.
“To Hypnos (Fumigation from Poppies)” varies things by having the vocals and a melody guitar using their own timing pattern while the drums and rhythm guitar are far faster and more aggressively paced.
Being quite far from peaceful “Deep Tranquility” has a nice steady beat and more heavy metal than thrash riff structure and feel to the song but “Shrines of the Forgotten Gods” is short and punchy and wastes no time hitting the required speed and high notes with the lead solo.
I can only assume that “Angstharsis” is catharsis via anger, but regardless, the bass riff running through the song has a nice heady thump to it that runs perfectly when the OTT lead comes to the fore.
“Monolith” has a very old school riff that runs through the song, it is however still catchy enough to have you listening out for when it changes into “Pleasure Seeker” with its even steadier riff that plods along in comparison.
I guess “Let Me Rage Before I Die” is aptly named in the sense that it is a rather energetic track which has brief pauses for the catching of breath before going completely berserk once more.
The final track on the album already has a video out and it’s a cover of Motörhead’s “Eat The Rich”, and to be honest I’m actually surprised there haven’t been plenty more Motörhead tracks on albums this year, or maybe that’s what next year shall bring.
I guess they certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel, but then again why bother when there are enough fans to enjoy what they were doing regardless.
(7/10 – Marco Gaminara)
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