Review Summary: Definitely the best album from Defiance but it still doesn't reach a top score. Enjoyable Bay-Area thrash-metal but nothing remarkable, unfortunately.
Background Information
The Bay-Area delivered high-quality thrash-metal legends as
Testament and
Exodus but not every band from the Bay-Area was meant to succeed.
Defiance was one such band who didn’t made a huge career for them selves, the thrash-metal movement was growing in high-speed during the 80’s in America and many bands never got the chance to really show their abilities for the public, huge numbres of thrash-metal bands were disbanded while the strongest survived and
Defiance was one of the bands that disbanded. But most of the core-crew of
Defiance had thoughts to reform the band once more and release an album in the end 2006, some people might find this interesting while others find it quite uninteresting. Personally, I find it quite interesting, the band broke up in 1993 so it should be something interesting.
Band Members (
With performance rating)
Ken Elkinton – vocals
3/5, good
Doug Harrington – guitars
4/5, excellent
Jim Adams – guitars
4/5, excellent
Mike Kaufmann –
bass 3/5, good
Matt Vander Ende – drums
4/5, superb
Album Information
Defiance released a total of three albums, this album was their first and it is called
Product Of Society, an album that actually shows that this band did have some good-quality thrash to deliver.
The Fault is the name of the opening track to this album and once you have heard this track you can imagine how the rest of the tracks will sound like, most songs are basically small thrash attacks but they don’t make so much damage if I say so. Catchy riffing, enjoyable and skillfully played solos and accurate drumming shines in every song, but as many other thrash bands this band did not have a skilled singer,
Defiance did not have the same singer in all of their albums, their first singer is without a doubt their best singer. The two other albums was performed with a new singer and he made the band sound like a
Testament clone but their first singer gave the band a small splash of uniqueness before they turned into a ‘’clone’’. But this doesn’t mean that he was a skilled singer, he reminds you of
Vio-Lence’s singer
Sean Killian. Anyway, this album was released in 1989 and it has some enjoyable thrash moments, most songs has very catchy riffing and quite lots of double bass kicking, the only things that this album lacks of would be an audible bass and some variety but the overall material is of good thrash.
My Conclusion
It was really good to hear some older thrash, I thought that this album was going to sound like their other two albums but this one surprised me a bit, I can actually see myself listening to this album and not think of it as a bad thrash album. The band felt a bit special with their new singer, the guitar work had lots of catchy riffs and the songs had good tempos (compared to the other two albums). I think this album should suit thrashers pretty good or if not very good, if you like bands from the Bay-Area such as
Testament,
Vio-Lence or
Death Angel or perhaps other bands like
Metallica or
Megadeth you would probably enjoy this album.
Pros
+ Very catchy and enjoyable guitar work
+ Awesome solos
+ Great song tempos and structures
+ Very good drum work, it did have some variety
+ This singer gave the band a bit more uniqueness
Cons
- No vocal talent but it was better than their second singer
- The album was intense but there was no real ‘’fire’’ in the material
- The songs are close to become repetitive
Recommended Tracks (
No particular order)
Deadly Intentions
Hypothermia
Forgotten
Lock Jaw
This is definitely the best album from Defiance and it will be given a strong 3.5/5
