HISTORY
Forget all the todays thrash-metal bands like
Megadeth,
Metallica and other veteran bands who fell victims for the mainstream.
Destruction is here to show what thrash-metal is all about,
Destruction and the bands both german rivals
Kreator and
Sodom came to the world with aggressive, heavy and bonecrushing thrash-metal that few bands didn't have. All the bands had their ups and downs in their career but all of them returned with their original sounds and refined them,
Destruction returned with more brutality and speed when the frontman
Schmier came back after his departure. They released this album and it is called
''The Antichrist, keep on reading if you are more interested of this band and album.
ALBUM INFORMATION
This album delivers devastating thrash-metal from the german veteran band, all the songs here are basically massive thrash-attacks. Not all songs are highlights but there are songs that will stand pride with their massive sound and aggression. This album is focused on speed, lots of heaviness, complicated guitar, bass and drum work plus vocals that gives the words ''pi**ed off'' a whole new meaning. The vocals might be horrible to ''unsued'' listeners but to more experienced metal-heads will enjoy this pretty much I guess, we will coeme back later to the vocals so don't worry. The guitars in this album is awesome, the rhythm sections are heavy and very solid. The shredding and riffing is advanced, skillfully performed and is very catchy most of the time. The guitar solos are basically very fast, maybe not so melodic because the album does not focus so much on melody. The solos are the played with great skill and most of the guitar solos are quite chaotic, energetic and sometimes a bit frantic in their structures, enjoying to some but also hated by others. The bass is very good in this album, it was very enjoying to finally hear some real metal-bass and not these faded and hided bass in other ''calmer'' bands. The bass goes along perfect with the guitars and makes a really cool sound to all of the songs. And then we have the beautiful drums, from rapid firing pounding to heavy and more medium paced hammering. The patterns has a good variety and most times it is very catchy patterns too.
THE CREW
The crew was only three persons when this mighty fine album was created and the members are and were the vocalist and bassist
Marcel Schirmer (Schmier),
Mike Sifringer and the third member was
Sven Vormann and he was the drummer. The thing I saved was the vocals from
Schmier, the vocal work in this album suits very good to the music. The vocals a very harsh, quite yell and loud but yet very powerful. The vocals are though unique but I guess that people would hate these kind of vocals but I think that they are great. As I said before, the members did great on this album, the music was skillfully performed.This album has been made with big enthusiasm and hard work I must say, there is a spirit in this band that most of many other lost in their careers.
SONGS I LIKED IN THIS ALBUM
The tracks I enjoyed the most was quite a few though, the first track that really hooked me was
Nailed To The Cross. This song goes out hard with short bursts of drumming and the guitars are playing the main riffs, the song has a fast pace and a classic thrash-formula. The song is very catchy, especially the chorus, it may feel slower than the verse but the chorus is really heavy. The song is pretty advanced and technical in its structure, the riffing is performed in many styles and there is also a small bass solo here I think, not a good one though. The second song that hooked me was
Dictators Of Cruelty, this song is my favorite song on the whole album. The song is very heavy, the song structure is addictively catchy and it is pretty fast too. The song starts with a fast and crunchy bass intro, the main riffing sounds a little bit familiar to
Overkill's type of music, this is an incredible headbanger song and is worth checking out. The third song I thought was great was
Creations Of The Underworld, this song starts with a fast and technical bass intro and short bursts of guitars. The drumming enters and plays a classic fast thrash-based pattern, the song is though very catchy heavy, the chorus is the best part of the song where the drums get a more rhythmic pattern but the verse is pretty cool too.
Meet Your Destiny was also a song that I felt rocked pretty hard, the song starts pretty slow compared to the other songs. The song as a whole is a bit slower which was good, it didn't make the album to sound to repetitive, anyway the song was quite technical in its structure and it was catchy at many moments.
SONGS I DIDN'T LIKE IN THIS ALBUM
Godfather Of Slander wa a song I didn't liked so much, the song had these wierd mixed speaking and I don't like stuff like that. The song was though a bit enjoying but the structure of the song was a bit too technical, the chorus was the only thing which was easy to go along with.
Thrash Till Death had a massive intro and is pure thrash, but I thought it sounded a bit strange though. The short intro solo reminded you of
Exodus a little bit and the chorus riffing was quite odd and it was uncatchy. The song felt a bit rushed too, if the song was played in a slower pace it would been a perfect song.
The Heretic would be the last track that I couldn't get along with. The song had also a quite wired structure and the main riffing was pretty odd, the song was not so catchy and it didn't felt heavy too.
SONGS I FELT WAS MORE NEUTRAL
That was the tracks that I didn't like so much compared to the other tracks, the tracks that I haven't described was songs that was neutral. The other songs were good at some moments and sometimes they got bad,
Bullets From Hell felt more like a
Anthrax blended song, the song was very catchy at the intro and the structure felt similar to early ''Big Four'' material if you know what I mean but it was still an enjoying song though.
Strangled Pride was a straight-ahead thrash attack, the song didn't felt so heavy. It had elements that was a bit similar to early
Slayer in my opinion, the song was quite aggressive and it didn't appeared so catchy to me.
Left Yor Min Rot felt pretty slow in the compared to the other songs, there was moments where the drums increased in speed but the song did grabbed my attention. The song got a bit faster after one minute but it didn't got any catchier for that, the riffing felt too strange.
Days Of Confusion was the song I did paid any attention to at all because it was just a short intro song that lasted for 49 seconds. It was made by a mystic acoustic guitar and a voice speaking in the background.
FINAL JUDGEMENT
I'm almost in love with this album now, I have started to dig more of these three bands now than the american thrash-metal bands. This music was more rawer, more aggressive and it is such a massive engergy in the albums, especially in the newest releases. This album was excellent thrash-metal in my ears, there was of course songs that I felt good about and some songs were less good. I will recommend this album to
Destruction fans of course, I will also recommend this album to people who like extreme thrash and/or death-metal actually. I think that these vocals would go home to those people because there is also a lot of strange vocals in those genres too. Well that was everything from me this time so I thank you for reading this and I hope this was a good guidance for you dear metal-heads out there.
PROS
+ Pretty unique vocal style
+ The instruments has a great balance, nothing was to powerful or to low
+ The bass is ringing out in almost every song, making a half-brutal sound
+ There is no sign of mainstream influences
+ Pure aggressive and devastating german thrash-metal
CONS
- The material felt though a bit repetitive
- I'm pretty sure that these vocals will bug people
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Dictators Of Cruelty
-- Nailed To The Cross
-- Creations Of The Underworld
-- Bullets From Hell
The overall album rating will be a smashing:
4/5
Keep it up.
