Death Angel-Killing Season

Nuclear Blast
2008



When people talk about the current thrash revival they are normally refering to younger bands such as Municipal Waste, Merciless Death, Fueled by Fire and those acts who play a style that was at it's peak twenty years ago. However there are a number of veteren acts who formed back in the 80's who are still plying their craft and creating thrash today as well. Bay area act Death Angel cranked out three studio albums and a live one between 87 and 90 before folding. Then they reformed earlier this decade and delivered "The art of dying" back in 2004. Death Angel were a band that I always kind of rooted for back in the day because it always seemed like they touched on some moments, but never quite broke out. "Killing Season" is a rather bare bones thrash album that cuts straight to the heart of the matter and for the most part rips straight ahead. I think that works for them better than the majority of "The art of dying". They are not trying to build epic songs or blend genres, but at this point in their career no one expects that. It's not fancy yet it is appealing because they just open up and sprint forward as they pound, plow and pull their way through some fairly catchy pieces of thrash. A large part of the reason why this album is better than the efforts by most of the younger bands of today is because those bands are all trying to like sound someone else while Death Angel just sound like themselves. It did seem a little like most of the better tracks were towards the beginning, but it's far more even than some of their other albums. Overall "Killing Season" does enough to make me take notice and next to "Act 3" this is probably Death Angel's second best album.

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