Review Summary: Just straight up balls to the wall thrash metal! This is one of those albums that isn’t to musical, but it just kicks your ass front to back.
Vio-Lence helped pioneer the take no prisoners/kick everyone’s ass in the crowd, and party it up style that makes thrash so appealing to most angst ridden teenagers back in the late 80’s. Well pioneers may be an overstatement, but still they managed to follow the trend of their thrash forefathers such as Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, and Exodus and the list goes on.
Vio-Lence consisted of arguably the best bay area guitar duo with Rob Flynn and Phil Demmel of Machine Head fame. With Sean Killian on vocals, Perry Strickland on drums, and Deen Dell on bass duties. While not being nearly as musical savvy as their thrash counterparts Metallica and Megadeth, they still happened to create a great piece of music that taps the nerve and makes you want to go and slam a case of Budweiser and beat someone’s face in! The band didn’t enjoy much mainstream hype, as they only released one video that was seldom played on MTV’s Head bangers Ball and they also had literally no air time on main steam radio.
In the underground metal world this album has been stated many times to be Vio-Lence’s best album. And I don’t see why not, it has all the elements of a great thrash album. A great rhythm section (not limited to the guitars), shredding solos, drums that give you a punch in the nuts, dark lyrical content, and notable bass. The only draw back is the vocals, which to the average listener that it not a thrash manic will say suck. Which I would have to agree, but they fit the music very well. Sean Killian will probably be the first to tell you that he is not the best vocalist in the world. But he did a good job of having aggressive vocals that fit with the in your face aggressive guitar rhythms (Sean I applaud you). But on the other hand the guitar work is in your face and some of the fastest from the bay area. Such as on the title track Eternal Nightmare the whole 6 and half minutes of the song doesn’t let up. The only song that isn’t really fast but still is fast is Call In The Coroner, this song shows more restraint in the riffage but still manages to give ya a good kick in the kiester.
The best tracks on this album are by far Serial Killer and my personal favorite Phobophobia. Both songs are great because they contain all of the key elements to a great/outstanding thrash song. They both have very dark lyrics and on Phobophobia very odd lyrics, kind of on a Dave Mustaine level, out there but still genius. Other then the tracks I listed the rest of the album kind of sounds similar but not the same. They have what the whole album already has, kick ass riffs with vocals that fit the song.
All in all this album should be picked up by any thrash metal fan past or present. If you are not a thrash head then don’t bother wasting your money on this. Also I wouldn't suggest this if your looking to get into thrash. Check out the big four(Metallica,Megadeth,Anthrax,Slayer) first and then maybe move on to this, if you listen to those bands you’ll enjoy this a lot more. And last if you love out of this world guitar rhythms and don’t really care about vocals and you can easily look past them, then if you can go ahead and try to pick this up. Thrash heads if you can score this piece of thrash metal history then defiantly don’t hesitate to buy it.
Pros:
-Lightning fast guitar riffs
-Dark lyrical content
-Notable bass
-Shredding solos
-Vocals that fit song
Cons:
-Bad vocalist (to the ave. listener)
-Songs tend to sound the same may bore the ave. listener
-Album length
If having a hard time finding this go to Amazon they have a few in stock at only like $10. This one hasn’t made it to Itunes just yet.
