Acid Drinkers-Are you a rebel?

Metal Mind
1990/2009


I never heard of Poland's Acid Drinkers back in the day. I think I only heard the name in recent years despite the fact that they are still around knocking albums out. That's a shame because they really were/are something special even here on their debut. By 1990 thrash had been around for several years and there were plenty of bands who were just going through the motions and hoping to achieve success by just straight out copying bands like Slayer, Exodus and the like. This band were on a track all their own. Sure, they had some definite influences. I would say Anthrax, Tankard, Dead Kennedys and DRI all come to band, but that just the tip of the iceberg. I guess the easiest way to explain it is to just to say that these guys were nuts and I certainly mean that in the most complimentary way possible. It's thrash and crossover, but they are way too quirky and crazy to be restrained by such basic labels. They knew how to play fast, loud and heavy, but then they just take off on a tangent and slap in whatever they wanted. Obviously they did what they liked and didn't think twice about whether it was metal enough or whatever. I can respect that approach and what's more is it comes off brilliantly on most occasions. Never has chaos and humor been so unexpected yet worked so well. The element of surprise helps this disc because it was hard to tell what they were going to do next. I am sure that this wasn't and still isn't for every thrash fan, but I found it to be fresh even though it's almost twenty years later. The only remotely negative thing I have to say about this disc is that I wish that I had heard it when it first came out in 1990, but at least I am getting to hear it now. This Metal Mind re-issue includes a lyric booklet and several live and demo tracks.

Artillery-By Inheritance

Metal Mind
1990/2008



In 1990 Denmark's Artillery released their third album. It is a departure from both “Fear of Tomorrow” and “Terror Squad”, but it succeeds in being their most ambitious effort to date. The previous two albums were awesome displays of bludgeoning, straight forward thrash. However, it had been three years since Terror Squad and Artillery were ready to spread out and take a few chances. They became a much more technical band on this release.The album begins with the 7:00 From Tashkent an introduction with Middle-Eastern influences. Right away this let's us know that the band had made some changes in their approach. Next up is "Khomaniac" which has a long build-up, but then tears into a rapid fire approach. "Beneath the clay (R.I.P) " emerges with a barrage of drums and then cuts and swerves through a storm of riffs and raging vocals. By this point it's obvious that this is Artillery only now they were bringing even more to the tables. The title track and "Bombfood" follow a similar pattern as Artillery start stacking up the layers of guitars and just surge forward with a constant assault of heaviness. My favorite track might by the closer "Back in the trash" because it contains enough riffs for three good songs. They know how to structure the song though and get the most out of each note. The only song I couldn't get into is their cover of Nazareth's " Razamanaz". It's an okay cover, but it's the second to last track and breaks up the feel of the album. The album had a great flow going and this cover songs really seemed out of place. This re-issue also has six bonus tracks including some demo tracks. Former Metallice producer Flemming Rasmussen produced it and fortunately the treatment is closer to "Master of puppets" than it is to his work on "...And justice for all". "By Inheritance" is just a fantastic album that much like this band was just unfairly overlooked. Artillery knew how to created some of the best thrash of it's time plus they actually progressed over the course of three albums. Definitely a must buy for thrash fans because you will not be disappointed.

Defiance-Void terra firma

Metal Mind
1990/2008



The Bay Area thrash scene was so active once upon a time about twenty years ago. It was a very crowded scene that a few bands emerge while others didn' t get the same amount of notice. Defiance probably some for two major reasons, one being that their debut didn't come out until 1989 when thrash was already in full swing. The second is that they sounded a lot like Testament. While that is a good sound to have, Testament had already established themselves and thus Defiance had some trouble coming up with an identity of their own. However that doesn't erase the fact that Defiance were a fine thrash band. By their second album they had obviously loosed up a little as they change the tempo and go beyond the very basic rout of their debut. The playing level is certainly more efficient this time around and they are more consistent. I am not sure that's necessarily heavier though and although this album is good they would benefited from increasing the heaviness level and there. Defiance are a fine example of Bay area thrash and they improved during their all too short first run. I actually like them better now than I did back in the late 1980's/early 1990's. I think that is because their material has aged nicely which isn't something I can say about every thrash band from back then. Metal Mind does a splendid job with the re-issue as this one includes bonus tracks and a lyrics booklet.

Spread Eagle-s/t

1990/2006/2008
Lovember


The debut from New York's Spread Eagle was originally released back in 1990, then it was re-issued in 2006 and when I saw being distributed again in September so I decided to get a copy to check it out. I remember seeing a few half-page ads for it in the metal magazines back in 1990. I don't know if I read negative reviews or if I just couldn't find it at my local record stores back, but for whatever reason I never got around to hearing it back then. In more recent years I began to see a lot of very positive reviews on it so I decided to check it out and see what all of the fuss was about. "Broken City" comes bursting on with more guitar changes in the first thirty seconds than many of their peers had in a whole four minute song. The groove is undeniable as they just ride this one out of the gate and hang on as it bucks and kicks all the way. Tracks like "Back on the bitch" and "Switchblade Serenade" are a bit more typical of the times, but just active enough to rise up and stand out. My two biggest complaints about hard rock back then and in general would be that they settle for bland rhythm sections and that the guitarists either can't or won't just rip loose on the rhythms enough. The rhythm section of Rob Deluca on bass and Tommi Gallo on drums are certainly well above the average and not afraid to step up and be heard. Guitarist Paul Di Bartolo is a monster just peeling off riff after riff with plenty of skill and precision with everything focused towards making the songs stronger as a whole. Vocalist Ray West is right in there screaming all the way and leading the charge. As a whole they remind me some of Skid Row, but more groove oriented and maybe a bit more versatile. Should Spread Eagle have been big? I wouldn't say that necessarily, but they probably should have gotten more notice than they did. Yet it was a crowded time with so many acts being signed at one point, it was inevitable that not everyone was going to emerge successful and sometimes it was just luck of the draw or having your single or video hit at the right time. However Spread Eagle debut stands out as an example of enjoyable hard rock of the time and it has aged rather well to boot.

Dragon-Fallen Angel

Metal Mind
1990/2008 Re-issue



Poland's Dragon had a history that dated back to 1984 and even though they got some praise early on they ran into some tough times with members having to serve in the military and members fleeing the country. Yet eventually times would became a little more stable for them and they would get to concentrate on their music. Before death metal was really an established genre or sub-genre some bands came from thrash and started adding elements that would later become traits of death metal. Dragon fall in that category as they obviously loved thrash as you can hear some Slayer, Kreator and early Sepultura in their music. Yet they were trying to push beyond the typical thrash style as they approached their sophomore effort "Fallen Angel". The music contains a variety of heavy, wormlike crawls, rapid fire blast of blurring speed and the typical thrashing sounds as well. Despites the inclusion of a moderately divers range of sounds, I am not sure that their writing skills could handle it all. The arrangements very from competent to amateur and rather messy as I think they knew they wanted different sounds, but they didn't how to piece them togethe to compliment one another. At times it's heavy and they shake things up with the pace changes and other times it sounds like they needed to spend more time thinking their ideas through. The vocals were not of the thrash variety as vocalist Adrian "Fred" Friedrich attempts a rather loose, semi-growl talking style that didn't really work for me. The heaviness of their music is there in spots and they hit on different sounds and approaches, but really it's just a little sloppy and fairly easy to understand why they never got that far.

More mini-reviews

Bob Vinyl and I have been hard at work on our Rocklahoma post and that will be out on Thursday. However because I was spending so much time on that post I didn't get a chance to write much for today. So I will do a few more mini-reviews from that stack I got last week.

Sammy Hagar-VOA
Actually a pretty decent album and better than I remember it being. A bit more keyboards than it needed maybe, but Sammy sounds good and the songs are generally solid enough.

Quiet Riot-Metal Health
I wore out my cassette of this back around 83-84, but then around say 1985 I kind of stopped listening to it because I got more into metal. It's actually still pretty good for the most part and has aged okay. The music is a little thin in places, but Du Brow's vocals keep it going.

Trixter-Hear
Okay, they tried to get a little heavier on their second album because they saw all of the other fluff bands getting knocked aside by grunge. However, most of their songs start with some okay guitar parts and then fade into fluffyland by the 30 second mark of each song.

Ted Nugent-Spirit of the wild
This was the Nuge's first solo album after Damn Yankees and one the better ones he had done in years at that point. It's different because he actually experiments a little here and there and generally it turns out pretty well. Not a classic, but a good hard rock album for him

Ramones-Mania
A best of that covered 1976 until 1988. A nice collection that gave a good idea of what they had done up until that time. I pretty much liked everything on this and I once wore out a cassette of this as well.