Review Summary: Aliens and Beer. What else could it be?
With Tankard's previous album, The Morning After (1988), it featured a much more solid and imperfect production, though it was riddled with poor production, it turned out to make the album more extreme and memorable.
It was a lot more catchier than 1987's Chemical Invasion album. Not long after it's release, the band made an improvement with their 5-track mini-LP, Alien.
Alien consists with the same type of riffs and tunes as their Morning After album, but with a better production and master.
Seemingly throughout the EP, is the solidness, monumental and aggressive riffs, witch usually Tankard don't use in their songs very often.
Alien is a success and a wild mini-LP filled with tons of funny lyrics, talent and power.
The final release to contain founding drummer Oliver Werner, Alien was the start of a new beginning.
With similar techniques to bands such as Exodus, early Testament, early Metallica and early Destruction, Alien featured some of Tankard's best tracks, witch was the band's last great album until 2000's Kings of Beer album.
This mini-LP may not be perfect, but what makes Alien special is the great production, the heavy riffing and the solid sound.
With innovative and funny lyrics on songs like "Alien", with the lines "Consumed my chow 'til nothing's left every week", and "Leave now, you drive me nuts, don't want you here", and classic song titles such as "666 Packs", Alien sits in between similar sounds of The Morning After and their 2002 release B-Day.
The beginning song "Alien", starts with a heavy intro riff, and then changes to show how heavy and fast Tankard can really be, with a hard-*** riff and talented instrument playing that makes the title-track a beast of a song!
Soon on, leading to the second track, "666 Packs", bursts with a brutal energetic guitar riff full of force and power, witch makes you want to blast the stereo even louder! This point on to the end of the song, shows a great melody of aggressive, but slow-paced playing that forms the album into a memorable, funny and brutal play, showing just how talented they truly are.
Third track, "Live to Dive" would make the perfect ending.
It's fast, solid, energetic and aggressive just like the title-track. Starting with a catchy riff that leads to the fast side of the band. Presenting how they started off with albums like Zombie Attack (1986) and Chemical Invasion (1987).
Fourth song, a cover to Rose Tattoo's "Remedy" hit, probably the least-best song from the EP, sees Tankard showing the rock-side of them selves. With the constant riffing and mean Steve Souza-like vocals, the song is a more slow energetic song with intelligent music playing.
Fifth title, "(Empty) Tankard", a classic re-recording originally from their Zombie Attack debut album; has Gerre at the top of his lungs yelling "We need another beer!!!" The re-recording has another great ending, with the music stopping all at once. One of the perfect end-outs!
Alien could possibly be Tankard's best release, though, some may think not, I think that the mini-LP has everything you need. Great riffing, great guitaring, great drumming, solidness, energy, talent and a great production!
Aliens and beer. What else could it be?
Recommended tracks:
"Alien"
"Live to Dive"
