Ultimatum / Join The Dead-Promotional Sampler

Roxx Records
2012

As Metal Mark said yesterday " The promo links are piling up.". With that being said (and with the express understanding that I am still only typing with one hand so any/all reviews from me will be short and sweet) I am also going to try to knock a few more out of the way over the next several days. This particular promo sampler features two solid Christian thrash outfits. Ultimatum are a band I'm rather familiar with. Lead by
Scott Waters (of No Life 'til Metal blog site fame) the band plays old-school thrash that is heavy and hard-hitting. I've always thought they sounded like a cross between Exodus and Metallica. In both cases I'm talking the earlier (and better) of both of those bands. All around good thrash that will make you want to turn your living room into a mosh pit. Excuse a bit of the old "cut and paste" here, but (per the promo):

Tracks 1 through 5 were taken from the brand new Ultimatum Album titled 'Heart of Metal - 20 Years of Ultimatum'

1. Heart of Metal [Remix 2012]
2. Blood on a Thousand Hills [2012]
3. Scattered (Body Parts) [2012]
4. Hook, Line & Sinker [2012]
5. Rip 'n' Tear [2012]

Meanwhile, tracks 6 through 9 were taken from the debut self titled album by Join the Dead  which I am fairly certain is the same EP I covered once already:
http://metalmark.blogspot.com/search?q=Join+The+Dead-Join+The+Dead+


Anyway, they tack on four very cool thrash tracks:
6. Mask of Fear [2012]
7. Out of Breath [2012]
8. Self Inflicted Pain [2012]
9. Idol Faith [2012]

And finally, track 10 is an "Exclusive Bonus Track made available only to 'You' and only here on this promotional sampler.". OK, I  can dig that. Said "exclusive bonus track" is a cover of the the Deliverance number " What A Joke?" and features Michael Phillips of Join the Dead and Scott Waters of Ultimatum. Is it any good? Well, it's a cover track so let's just leave it at that. Incidentally I actually caught Deliverance live when they played in the basement (yes, the basement!) of the local library "down the road". This was back when I was still in high school. They played with fellow Christian band Sacrament and made me realize that Christian thrash wasn't as bad as I had been lead to believe. Of course these days "White Metal" isn't as much of an issue anymore as the fine line between Christian and secular has been thoroughly blurred. It's easy enough to enjoy bands like this even if you are not a Christian as the music is, at it's core, just good old-fashioned thrash.