Plector goes out on a high note with Punishment Day

In case you didn't know, Sweden's PLECTOR is breaking up at the dawn of the release of their next album titled Punishment Day. With the financial pressures of maintaining a full-time underground deathrash band, I would be the last person to cast stones at these guys for calling it quits.

However, I find Plector's Punishment Day an incredible slab of sick 'n' savage metal, making the whole situation rather bittersweet.

Listening to Punishment Day, you can tell that Plector injects a well-rounded understanding of how to orchestrate face-pummeling, groove-laden metal. These guys maintain a secure grasp on what makes this type of music tick, proving it song after song in a series of furious thrashings and mid-paced neck-crushers.

How vocalist/guitarist Erik Engbo can harness such killer riffage on a continuous level is impressive to say the least. The dynamics between songs, such as No Reward and To Be Punished deliver both locomotive thrash chug-fests as well as pounding after pounding of crushing death grooves that bring to mind Jungle Rot's finest moments.

If this album starts a well-earned fire throughout the underground, I'm hoping that Punishment Day will have Plector remembered as a band who went out while in top form.

Check it out when Discouraged Records releases it on November 7th.


Visit Plector's Facebook page here.

Damageflag joins with Punkerama Records...because they ROCK!

A big congratulations to Ireland's own DAMAGEFLAG. These young thrashers inked a deal with Punkerama Records which will release the band's debut EP on November 1st.

If you have yet to hear Damageflag's music, these guys crank out driving thrash with mind-hooking riffage and an overwhelming sense of having a hell of a good time.

Their tune Ride Like Hell has branded itself in my brain. The main riff is genius and the chorus is perfect for the live-performance-audience-participation scream along.

Listen to their goods below and then hit Damageflag up here.

RIDE LIKE HELLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

Weekend Breakdown with Prainbork and Septic Fatality!

How might one get a grasp of what California's Prainbork is shelling out? Geez.

This is an epileptic attack mix of punk and metal bubbling with video game aggression and surreal humor. The layers of odd brilliance shine through in each song as Prainbork mastermind Art Bertik-Marquez channels his inner Mr. Bungle with nods to 50s rock, avant-garde jazz, and industrial, all peppered in a multi-genre mass of mind-blowing metal.

Prainbork's album A Wrench Short of a Baker's Dozen is driving and thunderous, with touches of atmospheric ghostliness and cartoon insanity. This is what it must have been like in the mind of a late-70s era Robin Williams.

Check out the songs below and hit Prainbork up here.




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Back in 2008, in good ol' South Yorkshire, guitarist Niall Roberts assembled the thrash building blocks for the band Septic Fatality. Four years later the public finally gets a taste of their upcoming EP titled Into the Tomb.

Sure the title of both the band and the EP scream death metal, but Septic Fatality are simple-yet-effective, pure thrash. As for the taste of their upcoming EP, ever since I heard Septic Fatality's tune Sadistic Maniac, I find myself going back over and over again, listening to their only available song like an addict. Is Sadistic Maniac a wheel-inventing thrash tune? Not by a long shot, but dammit, everything about it rocks. The raw production, the mind-infecting riffs, and the shout-along vocals offer the listener some horns-up thrash injected with small doses of Municipal Waste and Gama Bomb. What the song lacks in gut-punching dynamics, it makes up for in bare-bones attitude and catchy guitar chugging.

I'm ready to hear the rest of the Into the Tomb!

Listen to Sadistic Maniac below and then visit Septic Fatality here.

GrimWolf is pure werewolf METAL!

California's GrimWolf are described as "Pure American Werewolf Metal"! Werewolf metal? Hey, man, I can get on board, especially when the music is this beastly and aggressive.

As a horror movie fan, I was initially intrigued by GrimWolf's take on werewolves and how they plug the subject into most of their songs (Lycanthrope, Becoming the Beast, Little Red, etc.). Of course any band's cool gimmick has to be backed up by killer tunes, and thankfully GrimWolf provides ass-kicking ear sustenance as well.

GrimWolf hits hard with a solid heavy rock foundation, raging with melodic and occasional southern-tinged riffage. They add in heavy doses of thrash and death metal to create a savage climate for the listener to roam through - preferably under the light of a full moon.

With a seamless combination of old-school and modern thrash influences, the assault of GrimWolf's straight-forward chugging riffs are undeniably heavy as hell, and the when they break into melodic twists, killer solos, and traditional metal overtones, it all comes together into a monster of well-written metal.

Check out the tunes below and hit GrimWolf up here and here.

Review: Lich King - Born of the Bomb

Why the hell isn't LICH KING getting pushed by a solid record label? Surely their last two efforts earned a spot next to Evile, Diamond Plate, Gama Bomb, Bonded By Blood, etc., as far as well-written, quality thrash metal.

Even if the naysayers scoff at Lich King for being unoriginal or too goofy to be taken seriously, one would still have to admit there is an appeal to Lich King's music, whether one understands it or not.

Personally, I understand the music's appeal for me. I freakin' enjoy old-school thrash metal, and Lich King knows how to write a kick-ass song. Period.

Way back when Lich King released "Combat Mosh" as a teaser to the new album, the driving riffs and head banging dynamics had my mouth watering to hear more. That was approximately one year ago, so it's a good thing I didn't hold my breath until Born of the Bomb's release. In fact, I remember thinking what the hell was taking so long in popping that new album out…you know, since I am Mr. Impatient. I mean, Lich King offers up a couple samples to taste and an absolutely killer album cover, and they expect me to calmly wait while they seemingly stall the recording process (something I seriously doubt they did)?

Now although I was impressed with the teaser songs (which also included Wage Slave and the fantastic We Came to Conquer), I wasn't expecting anything more or anything less from the new Lich King album than a few well-written thrash tunes ranging from good to great which will occupy my car CD player for the next month or two as I drive to and from work.

Well, scratch that sh*t right now. I may not have been expecting anything more from BotB than a few well-written thrash tunes, but what I got instead is a monster of a metal album that will most certainly do more than occasionally occupy my car CD player. What I got is a full-on solid slab of hungry thrash metal that will rule in my music listening rotation for a long time to come.

From the get-go, I really dug the short, sweet, and heavy-as-hell opener All Hail. However, I freakin' knew I hit pay dirt with this album once the two following familiar songs lead into In The End, Devastation. This track is the teeth-gritting stomp and blistering thrash attack I crave in my metal. The chugging riffs actually bring to mind early Pro-Pain and vocalist Tom Martin's use of dynamics between his vocal rhythms and the music's metal onslaught is perfection.

Other highlights include Agnosticism, which at first was my only weak link on the album until the actual music of the track sunk in and completely infected me. The song's initial build-up to an incursion of stomping thrash is mirrored in pure awesomeness by the solo sections of impactful musical prowess. i.e. It's bad-ASS.

Another killer track is Axe Cop, a razor-sharp thrash smasher with a chorus fans will definitely shout while submerged within the song's insanity.

The closer, Lich King IV (Born of the Bomb) ups the dosage of brain-sick riffage and pure thrash tempos that will make even the most hardened Vio-lence fan smile.

So yes, I may have been whining about how long it took to finally hear the full album after the first teaser release, however, I have to keep in mind that top-notch takes time. What's better than top-notch thrash, right? With Born of the Bomb, Lich King stepped up the quality and created a herculean thrash metal album more than worthy of our time as fans of the genre.

So why isn't Lich King getting a well-earned push by a solid record label? I don't know, but it's their loss. Absolutely one of the best of 2012.


Lich King's Facebook page.
Buy Born of the Bomb here.

Eradikator ROCKS!

Freakin' ERADIKATOR! Jamming out to this Birmingham thrash band is so much f*cking FUN that I am pissed I just recently discovered them. These guys know how to get the listener's head moving with a barrage of tightly executed riffs wrapped around some solid thrash metal song writing.

The catchy hooks and all-out energy Eradikator expels in their music brings to mind the clockwork hammering of Overkill's last two albums. Tracks such as Skeletal Steel and Overthrow display a ruthless aggression and tight-as-hell delivery that propels the killer drumming and rhythm playing to the foreground.

Eradikator's Odysseus is an instrumental that is absolutely stunning in its dynamics of blues-based emotion and hard-as-nails metal attack. It's epic. This track alone has more substance and backbone than most bands can garner in their entire careers. I've listened to Odysseus multiple times and I am continuously blown away by the mountainous array of feelings this song stirs in me. Truly, truly fantastic.

The bottom line is that Eradikator is a thrash band that should be turning the heads of thrash fans everywhere, and here's hoping that they go on to bigger and better places without changing a damn thing about what they do and who they are. Just…bad ass.

Listen and devour the available streaming songs below and then hit them up here.

Exclusive LICH KING song premiere: "Lich King IV (Born of the Bomb)"

The New Wave of Thrash Metal Blog is proud to present "Lich King IV (Born of the Bomb)", an all-new track from the mighty LICH KING! This tune comes from the brand-spankin' new album titled Born of the Bomb, to be released tomorrow (Friday, September 28th).

To help forge the new track into the stellar piece of bad-assery that it is, Lich King IV (Born of the Bomb) also features Jay Visser and Patrick Lind of the legendary MORBID SAINT!

Just so you know, Lich King is debuting other tracks from the album on the following blogs:

Global Thrash Assault (streaming the track Axe Cop)

Leave the Hall (streaming Agents of Steel)

Nefarious Realm (streaming Agnosticism)

So make sure you head their way after you get a blistering taste of pure metal right here. After you check out the tunes, go tell Lich King how much you dig 'em on their Facebook page and then order Born of the Bomb here!