Review Summary: Even tough the album doesn´t have any redeeming factor that tops its comtemporaries, Paradox´s debut still provides a solid listen throughout
The year was 1987. Thrash metal was at its peak. Inumerous bands were releasing classic after classic, and would keep it up for quite a while. As those bands were maturing and reaching their finest form, other bands has just started showing up. Testament and Death Angel are the most known examples, with their debuts receiving an amazing response. However, of all the bands showing up during that time, one of them is often overlooked. Paradox released their debut album `Product of Imagination´ and even tough it has many flaws it´s still a solid record that any thrash fan will enjoy.
After the instrumental Opening Theme, the band´s self titled song `Paradox´ kicks in, delivering aggressive riffs along with powerful drums, making any thrash fan headbang all day. Such aggressive and fast sound keeps up for pretty much the entire album.
Guitarists Charly Steinhauer and Markus Spyth provide a solid performance, with technical and fast riffs. The solos are pretty well done, using a nice mix of shredding and tapping that sounds fresh and enjoyable throughout the record. Bassist Roland Stahl doesn´t have many moments to shine, but it´s still an important part to maintain the band´s heavy and fast sound.
Steinhauer also does the vocals on the record, and reminds a lot of Testament´s Chuck Billy style. His vocals are angry and fit the music perfectly. However, the real standout on the instrumental section is drummer Axel Blaha. The man is a monster on the drum set and delivers energic and aggressive fills, bringing the instensity on the album to a next level.
But yea, even tough these guys know how to handle their instruments and deliver a nice song, at the time of this record they didn´t know exactly how to make an album sound good and fresh in a whole. Aside the title track(which is the best song here), all the songs follow the same structure, and eventually the constant aggressive and fast sound ends up tiring the listener. The bad production adds to that too, sometimes making the instruments blend together and boring the person who´s listening.
Overall, the simple songwriting and bad production bring the album down a little, making it kind of generic. Note that by generic, I mean simple and not bad. This is straightforward thrash metal and will provide an enjoying listen to any thrasher out there.
