Thrash bands you need to hear

Plector
In a killer blend of death/thrash, northen Sweden's Plector cooks up tunes full of brutal gallops and crushing grooves. I love this stuff, but since I am a noob to their music, I missed both times they toured here in the states. Boo.

Check out their video for Spiteful Love and then check 'em out here.




Shrapnel
Shrapnel out of Norwich - "the most complete medieval city in Britain" - plays thrash that is simply so freaking GOOD. Their music is neckbreaking, necksnapping, neckstomping, and anything else that could put a painful damper on turning your head the morning after experiencing Shrapnel's assault.

I love the first sentence of their bio which reads, "Forget revivals. Forget reunions. There is only now. There is only THRASH."

These guys bleed metal into every riff, drum roll and scowl. Listen to their tune Eternal War and try not to kick your furniture over when the chorus hits. After, check them out here.





Bacalou
If you want old-school, Bacalou plays it to perfection. After receiving a link from the Johnson City, TN band, I checked them out and instantly became a fan. Bacalou cranks out straight-forward thrash, aptly played, with cool lyrics and killer solos.

For those of you who complain that every new thrash band should find a way to reinvent the wheel can cry elsewhere. Those who want to thrash and destroy, suit up and slam to Bacalou!

Listen to the tracks Shock Therapy and Panic and then check them out here.








Abserdo
Speaking of old-school, check out Abserdo, a crossover band from Philly. Abserdo offers high energy insanity for those into Cryptic Slaughter and old D.R.I., but with enough metal influence to appeal to most other thrash hounds.

I am impressed with the various sounds Abserdo plays with to construct their tunes. From grind to punk to thrash to slow metal riffage with soulful solos(!!), these guys are politically charged and noisy, but with tight musicianship to back it up. You definitely have to listen to more than one song to hear everything they have to offer. Check out Abserdo here.

Impalers - A Necessary Evil

Although I have heard of the band Impalers, I had not heard a note of their music until recently.

Such an oversight was my mistake, and since I am always on the lookout for killer new thrash bands (of course), I should have at least clicked on Impalers' MySpace page. Right?

I get lazy, okay?

So, as I burned through a recently obtained promo copy of Impalers new demo release titled A Necessary Evil, I let out an audible "Hell, yeah!"

Galloping riffs, tight drums and well-orchestrated solos are abundant, highlighted by a clear and professional recording. Not that a professional sounding recording is the be-all end-all (because even a turd can be served on a silver platter), but these guys can THRASH, and when it sound this good, then it's all the better.

Although Impalers well-oiled teutonic-inspired thrash seems to keep the foot firmly on the pedal, with only the occasional mid-tempo riff to allow you to exhale, the listener is offered enough dynamics to keep the music fresh.

One aspect that keeps Impalers music a step above the rest is the use of the guitar solos. During the solo section, most bands use the standard main riff under a barrage of speed pick wankery. While that is all fine and dandy in some cases, it's good to hear a solo integrated into the music to blend with the peaks and valleys of a song's dynamics - not unlike what Megadeth or even Cellador does.

The four songs on A Necessary Evil go by fast and furious, offering a taste of brutality that makes it easy to click the replay button.

Check them out here. Buy their demo here.

Thrash is backward compatible

As my wife was running some errands a few days ago, she was digging through her glove box to find a CD.

She was in the mood for some Puppets-era Metallica, but knowing that the disc was not in the car, she was hoping to find something heavy to satisfy her appetite for thrash.

Let me say that her appetite for thrash is a rare hunger pang. She is not well versed in thrash (although better than your average Joe), and truthfully is not a fan of the all-out nonstop speed thrash. The *pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa* of the persistent snare drives her nuts.

Don't get me wrong, she has a heart for heavy music (her faves include Testament, Obituary, Pro-Pain, Megadeth, and even Napalm Death, which may contradict what I said in the previous paragraph, but Napalm has a knack for dynamics and hell-heavy breakdowns), but for the really fast stuff, her intake has to be in small doses.

So as she rummaged around through the glove box, she came across my burned copy of Vio-lence's Eternal Nightmare. Even as a fan of Machine Head, she had no idea who Vio-lence was, but popped the CD in anyway (probably fully expecting not to like it).

She admitted to not liking the first song, mainly due to the vocals, as do a lot of people who experience Killian's vocals for the first time. She listened to part of the second song (Serial Killer), and hit the skip.

Then began the song Phobophobia. Her thumb departed the skip button as the opening riffs caught her ear. When the vocals eventually kicked in, she still kept her digits far away from the skip button, allowing the song to continue uninterrupted.

She liked the song, which is a positive victory. Start small. One song. That's good.

I, myself, recently found that once you let a little bit of Vio-lence's music creep into your brain, the rest will eventually storm in, invade your privacy, make itself at home and eat your food. Then all you'll want to do is listen to Eternal Nightmare. It's a cosmic rule that E.N. can turn ordinary humans into thrash-frenzied maniacs. Look it up.

Anyway, when my wife later told me that she really liked "this one song" from Vio-lence, I was happy. I figured that out of all the thrash in which she might give a chance, Vio-lence would be at the bottom of the list next to Rigor Mortis and Guillotine.

When I told her who they are (classic-area thrash with members of Machine Head) and how it was weird that I never really listened to them until recently, she looked puzzled.

"Oh, they are that old?" she asked. "I thought I was listening to one of those new thrash bands that you are into."

HA! Did you all get that? She thought Vio-lence was a NEW thrash band.

Now, I am not making fun of her untrained ear toward thrash, nor am I poking fun at her mistaking a classic thrash band as a recent upstart stalk in the vast crop of the NWOTM.

No, I am praising her mistake! Why?

Because, as the bane of purists and to the delight of fans, when it is said that bands such as Violator, Bonded by Blood, and Municipal Waste sound like they could have come out of 1987 instead of 2011, they are right!

The music of newer thrash bands can be mistaken to be from an earlier era because a lot of it is undiluted thrash in its purest form. They want to play THRASH, criticisms of unoriginality be damned.

This is great news for new fans! Just as a vast number of NWOTM music could have been written and released 25 years ago, albums such as 4 of a Kind, Extreme Aggression, Kill 'Em All, and Game Over could be released today without the concerns of sounding dated.

In other words, new fans of thrash should have no problem skipping from era to era, experiencing everything thrash has to offer. It's backward compatible.

To a lot of us, thrash is forward-compatible, too, despite what the purists will say.

Lich King RULES!

Why I have not yet dedicated a post to the mighty Lich King is an idiot move on me.

Lichmaster Tom Martin may write about monsters, violence, and silliness, but the music itself is far from flippant. Mosh-worthy rhythms are aplenty, and even the angriest grand poobah of the pissed-off thrash brigade can't help but give a horns up, even in the face of a few lyrics that plant the tongue firmly in cheek.

Tom's consistent bragging about Lich King (examples: "I'd rather listen to...us!" "The best damn thrash band ever, ever." "What's not news at all is that we rule.") shows a light-hearted and fun approach to some serious thrash metal.

Check the riffs in A Storm of Swords from their World Gone Dead album. Grinding. Stomping. Killer!



Check out Lich King here and here.

Rising Dark ROCKS!

AH! More Italian metal! What is in the water over in Italy to produce so much good METAL? I've mentioned many great Italian thrash bands here before, and here I go again.

From Ravenna we have Rising Dark, a traditional thrash band that sounds a bit like a stripped down Testament. Even vocalist Michael Crimson reminds me of a young Chuck Billy, complete with Billy-esque vocal patterns.

Mind you, this is all based off hearing one song titled This is War, and thanks to Reverbnation, you all can check out the straight-forward headbanging riffs, seamless song structure, and enough grit to the song that it makes you hungry for more. Rising Dark need to post more songs!

Meanwhile, check out the tune and then check out the band here.

Checking out some new thrash!

Since I have been slacking on my posts lately, I thought I would kill a bunch of birds with one stone and list a few bands that have caught my ear one way or another.


First we have Vermillion Days from Greece. These death/thrashers began in 2007, playing various favorite cover tunes while crafting their own originals. Those original tunes came together as Vermillion Days' first self-financed EP titled In the Warfield.

In the Warfield has a classic death/thrash sound reminiscent of early Sepultura.

You can check out their YouTube channel here, and after, go "like" them on their Facebook page here.





Next we have Betrayer FTM from Columbia. This stuff is extreme thrash with a raw punk feel. I say punk "feel" because it's not 100% crossover, but it has a killer raw quality that gravitates the songs toward the genre. The tune Midnight Poison might be the best example of this with the guttural vocals and thrash rock riffage. Awesome!

The cover art to their album No Life Till Fury is disturbing and sick, sticking out as a good reference to the flavor of music hammered out by Betrayer FTM.

Check 'em out here.




Next is a promising band from Buffalo NY called New World Horror. I mentioned them in a previous post here. These young thrashers (ages between 17 and 19) decided to form a band only one year ago (March 2010), and have been working to get themselves on the music map.

N.W.H. is already making headway by opening for some of the NWOTM heavyweights such as Gama Bomb and Bonded By Blood. Although their demo is not perfect (for example, the vocals are a bit patchy on the more melodic "singing" parts, and the dynamics in their breakdown riffs simply are not there) but it still has some pit worthy moments.

The musicianship is excellent. Their song Vipers sticks out as their best with a pummeling opening that leads into vocal patterns which bring old Nuclear Assault to mind.

These guys are still young in their musical journey with N.W.H., and I'm more than curious to see how they will develop into a well-oiled thrash machine. As far as they have come within a year, New World Horror's next effort has the potential to destroy. I'll be watching.

Check them out here.

Vindicator changes and future

Ohio thrashers Vidicator posted at Thrash Unlimited about all the changes within their camp. Instead of giving you the lowdown, I'll take the easy way out and copy/paste.

"We have a revamped logo courtesy of our good friend Tom Martin of Lich King. We're very happy with what Tom did and encourage all bands to hit him up if in need of logo design and or adjustment.

New material is in the works. The band has entered the pre-production phase. Of course it retains our sound, but expect a more brutal, unforgiving, Vindicator.

I've been saving the best for last! We have a full, new, robust line up that we're very, very, excited to take on the world with. Filling the void in our lead guitar slot is ex-White Wizzard/ex-Holy Grail axe slinger, James J. LaRue. We're very excited to have James' talents aboard! Filling our vacant bass spot is Lick The Blade bass phenom, Mike Kurtz! Give the new family members a warm TU welcome! I'll be taking over lead vocals (while still playing rhythm) and Jesse will remain on drums... still being awesome.

We have some awesome confirmed festival appearances including: Slaughter By The Water 2, Thrashaggedon 3, and Warriors Of Metal Open Air 4, including awesome touring and awesome local shows. In addition to all this awesomeness, we're slated for an awesome video shoot in Los Angeles this summer!"

So there you have it. I know that line-up changes freak people out. Consider what happened to the band (fill in the blank of a band who changed members and sucked thereafter).

However, not all bands go to crap when they change members. Remember (fill in the blank of a band that changed members and were super-awesome thereafter)? So don't worry. I'll take their word that we can expect "a more brutal, unforgiving, Vindicator."

Check out their MySpace here.

Warbeast ROCKS!

Warbeast's Krush the Enemy has been out for nearly one year. I could have waited a month to post this as a happy one year anniversary, but I couldn't get the main riff from "Stalker" out of my head, so here it is.



For those of you who are not familiar with either this band or their past, let me offer the following: Fans of Gammacide and/or Rigor Mortis should check out the full Warbeast album. Fans of Warbeast should check out Gammacide and Rigor Mortis. Why? Because they all have band members in common. Woo-HOO! 'Nuff said.

Check out Warbeast here and here.

More thrash metal logos!

Ever since I re-posted about thrash logos from my graphic design blog, I've received tons of hits from people clamoring for logos. Man, you guys are thrash metal logo crazy!

Well, I am a generous man, and I like to dish out what the people want. So I offer the following graphics: nwotm band logos.

Oh, yeah. Quick side note about gaining hits. I also received a crazy amount of hits when I posted my prediction on Metallica's secret project. I figure that the name "Metallica" alone will most likely garner a healthy amount of searches, so it's no surprise I am seeing an uptick in hits.

Metallica! Metallica!

Now, onto some cool thrash logos!

Nuclear ROCKS!

If you don't scan Reverbnation for new bands, you need to start. Through a search on their fine website, I found a handful of killer metal bands.

One such band is Nuclear from Chile. Harsh and brutally fast, these guys crush from note one. Here is a sampling from their new album titled JEHOVIRUS.

*EDIT: I had to remove the embedded song from Reverbnation because the code was seriously bogging down the blog. Reverbnation needs to fix that! However, here is a link to Nuclear's page where you can sample a few of their tunes.

VIO-LENCE: a new treasure for me

I'm sorry. For years and years I have managed to elude and neglect one of the most well known bands among thrash fans. As for passing up potentially killer albums, we have all done it (especially those who were tied down with a limited budget), but to wait this long to spotlight a little personal attention on such a deserving band is…well, sad, really.

I remember seeing VIO-LENCE tapes and CDs at my local record store, but at the time, my small amount of chump-change was spent on an equal amount of classic rock and "popular" thrash metal. Eternal Nightmare's cover looked cool as hell, but there was always an old Deep Purple or Rainbow album I had to get, not to mention the occasional release by the Big Four and various popular underlings.

So, to sum it up, I just never gave VIO-LENCE a shot. By the time I had a little extra money to spend on music, I was well into death metal and hardcore, leaving what little thrash I had to wait out my obsession with other genres.

What an idiot I was. I don't regret the 90s and early 2000's, buying the ton of non-thrash records I now have in my collection, but why did I ignore my beloved thrash genre for so long?

I recently asked myself that question after I discovered the NWOTM. I bought up some of the re-thrash bands and smartened myself up on my metal roots via the thrash forums and blogs.

Of course, with all the talk of the NWOTM bands, the old-school bands were inevitable topics of conversation. When names like Forbidden, VIO-LENCE or Rigor Mortis were brought up, I would think back to when I would see their covers on the record store shelves as brand-new slabs of metal -- all which I passed up for the next Slayer, Testament, and eventually Obituary and Napalm Death.

Since then, I have scored copies of some of these classic bands, but I want to focus on VIO-LENCE for now.

When I first put on their record, I was slightly taken aback by Sean Killian's vocals. Believe me, I HATE bringing that up, because when folks talk about the band VIO-LENCE, the "strange" vocals always - ALWAYS - garners a healthy mention.

Although I might have been put off at first, I have my iPod set to shuffle and VIO-LENCE would always seem to pop up more frequently than any other band…or at least it seemed that way. Maybe the songs were simply more noticeable than the others, which makes sense because the more I heard them, the more I grew to really freaking LOVE this band.

Now, I can't get enough! Although I want to kick myself for never have listened to VIO-LENCE back in the day, I am happy that I am hearing them "new".

I know that many thrashers out there would love to live vicariously through me as I listen to certain classic albums with fresh ears.

METAL!

Kublai Kahn ROCKS!

I love doing research on old school thrash bands because it is inevitable that I will find something of which I've never heard. It's a bonus if I love the music as well.

Well, I just came across the band Kublai Kahn on one of the various metal blogs and I want to slightly injure myself for never hearing them before.

After streaming a few Kublai Kahn tunes on YouTube, I had to hit my blog and post this vid:




From their one and only album Annihilation (1987). Killer speed/thrash in the Kill 'Em All/Killing's My Business vein. Plus, their vocalist Greg Handevidt has some of the absolute best pipes for this type of music.

Nothing much more to say except KAAAAAAAAHHHHN!!!!!

What happened to Guillotine?

Anybody out there know what has happened to Guillotine? The thrash band responsible for the modern day classic albums Under the Guillotine and Blood Money seem to have fallen off the earth.

I am a really big fan of their brand of harsh thrash and would love to hear more material. Maybe I missed an update on some metal website somewhere, but have these guys called it quits or do we have to wait another 10 years before they release another slab of metal?

Come back, guys!

Diamond Plate ROCKS!

I've just recently been turned on to Diamond Plate, a thrash band consisting of some extremely talented guys in their late teens!

As I searched online for their website and vids, I learned they were recently signed to Earache! What a break! These guys deserve it and I can't wait until their debut.

Check out their MySpace page here.

Top 100 Thrash Albums

The Thrash Unlimited forum held a vote for the top 100 thrash metal albums (find it here on this thread).

Well, now you can hear a riff off of every album on the list thanks to the Thrash til Death channel on YouTube!

The 10 vids are quite an impressive endeavor. The poster named ThrashMetalRiffs, who compiled these, said these videos are "Great for new thrashers wanting to be introduced to new bands."

Agreed!

Check out video #1 here and move through the list.

Countdown to a killer thrash show!

yes, I am counting the days. On Feb. 11, 2011 at the Riot Room in Kansas City, I am going to see:

Death Angel, Lazarus A.D., Early Man, Bonded By Blood, Hexen, and Hammerlord.

I will finally be able to cross Death Angel off my list!

I am really psyched to see Lazarus A.D. and Bonded by Blood, the latter I listen at least every other day.

I also hope that Hexen brings some audio merch because I can't seem to find their freaking CD anywhere.

Anyway, I plan to take a camera, so hopefully I'll have some pics posted here after the mayhem.


























METAL!

Toxik Society ROCKS!

Man, do I love to discover new bands that tear my head clean off. Toxik Society, a thrash band out of Spain, did just that with their latest demo.

The three-song demo that I was able to download here, is a ferocious thrash attack with quick riff-rock undertones.

Here is one of my faves, titled Human War.




Check them out on their MySpace page.

Sworn Amongst!

How did these guys fly under my radar? I just discovered these guys by accident and I think their new album Severance is simply killer.




Check out their web site here.