Artist: Dark Angel
Album: Darkness Descends
Year: 1986
Don Doty: Vocals
Eric Meyer: Rhythm/Lead guitars
Jim Durkin: Rhythm/Lead guitars
Rob Yahn: Bass
Gene Hoglan: Drum God
1986, the peak year for thrash. However, some great albums of the time are often overlooked. THIS IS ONE. And it is great, hell it's beyond great. It's a big wall of aggresive sound that rips out your spine and shoves it up your ***. That's good. Let's get to the songs:
Darkness Descends:
Similar to Slayer's Hell Awaits, begins with a guitar build, then a slower riff with Hoglan's double bass pounding your skull into dust, then an insane wall of noise crushing the life out of you. Very very very good :thumb:
THE CITY IS GUILTY! THE CRIME IS LIFE! THE SENTENCE IS DEATH! DARKNESS DESCENDS!
The Burning of Sodom:
So fast, riffs are nearly indistinguishable, just a blur of superheavy noise. You've never heard anything this fast in your life. The solo is a mass of atonalism.
Hunger of the Undead:
Still very fast, but the pace is slighty dampened here, allowing Gene Hoglan to provide some very nice rolls. A kind of weird grinding bit in the middle with double bass, then a somewhat Morbid-Angelish riff, but before Morbid Angel was ever around. Great solo. A supremely great song to just thrash around to.
Merciless Death:
This song is from the first album, but it's played at about twice the speed. The bass intro is awesome. Perfection.
Death is Certain (Life is Not):
Gene Hoglans best double bass work. As fast as Lombardo's, or any thrash drummer of the time for that matter. He keeps up the thundering for the entire song. Which obliterates your very existence from beginning to end. The solo shreds supremely.
Black Prophecies:
I must first point out that this song is 8:30 long. It's gonna be a thrashsterpeice. Again, incredible drumming from Skin-bashing god Hoglan. Enough riffs to compose several standard metal albums out of, or alternately, you could make about 150 million Mallcore albums out of it. But I won't get into that. The song carries a dark, "evil" feeling throughout it. Sometime's Doty's vocals sound something like the strangled Black Metal vocals. I would go so far as to say that this is the highlight of the album. LONG LIVE THRASH.
Perish in Flames:
Alternates between fast parts, and insanely fast, skin-flaying parts. A great way to close the album, except that is makes you want more, and there is none.
So! If you consider yourself a thrasher and dont have this album/aren't immediately rushing off the amazon.ca to see if they stock it, VANISH FROM BEFORE ME, SCUMMY FILTH! The pinnacle of 80's thrash. By no means it it catchy or melodic. This album has one intention - to be the fastest, heaviest, most agressive hunk of metal out there. Guess what? It succeeds. This album, along with Reign In Blood, Pleasure to Kill, Schizophrenia, and Seven Churches, makes up an "unholy pentagram" of insane thrashers that set the stage for death, and all other extreme metal to come. Bow to it.
666/5.
Whats that? oh, I see.
5/5. Anyone rating it less in the poll will promptly be skinned, gutted, and hung to smoke.
