Thor-Into the noise

Sudden Death
2008

I remember looking in a Hit Parader or one of those magazines back around 1984 or 85 and seeing a picture of this huge bodybuilder looking guy with leather, chains and it seems like he had some mean, snarling dog on a leash as well. Upon reading the short article I was enlightened to the fact that this was Thor and he was a metal vocalist. Now being a teenager then I was into metal as well as comic books and pro wrestling. So a huge guy who was also doing metal was a thing of interest then or at least a somewhat interesting gimmick. Fast forward twenty plus years and Canadian Thor is still plugging away with this his latest release. His look is different, but his vocals still sound well enough and his music is generally along the same lines as most of his previous releases. Somehow I inevitably think of Manowar while listening to this album. It's not that the music sounds that much like them per se, but the lyrics contain a lot of the battle and stand up and fight type lyrics. The lyrics are pure cheese, but they make no pretense about being otherwise so I guess it's part of the image. The majority of the tracks are medium paced, fairly heavy and very much rooted in a 1980's style of metal. The most unusual aspect of this album is likely the amount of instrumentals as five of the twelve tracks are instrumentals. The instrumentals are very much focused on the guitar, but not of the self-indulgent variety. I liked all of those tracks enough, but I am not sure it really needed that many instrumentals. I found the album to be decent enough yet there were a few moments where I was losing interest because there isn't much of an attempt to reach past a very basic approach. Thor's image might still be larger than life, but despite some good guitar solos his material is closer to being just somewhat above ordinary.