Mixed bag – 80%
letthewarnervebreak, May 23rd, 2014
Well, some of the material here kicks ass. However, some of it is spectacularly generic. Basically what what we have here is a sort of sampler of some NWOTM bands, with each band getting two tracks.
The opening band, Merciless Death, really…eh. I don’t even know how to put this. They are easily the weakest band on the compilation, and really weren’t a good choice for an opening band to start the compilation. The worst part about these songs is the singer. Goodness, this guys sucks more than any thrash vocalist I’ve ever heard. Does Schmier’s singing bug you? You know, the guy from Destruction? How about John Connelly from Nuclear Assault? Ok, how about King Diamond? Or ANY of the people who sing for the nü-thrash bands like Lich King or Gama Bomb? Ok, multiply all of the annoyingness of every single one of the singers I just mentioned together, then to be fair maybe take about two-thirds of that. THAT is what he sounds like. Really. He’s just that bad, especially on the eponymous track (the opener of the entire fucking compilation no less). The worst part about this is, I’ve heard some other stuff by Merciless Death, and it doesn’t suck. Stuff with even the same goddamn singer even. I don’t know how this abomination of nature came to be, but it’s a bad way to start the album. Moving on.
The tracks by Avenger of Blood are fucking BRUTAL thrash/death in the vein of PtK Kreator, which is totally fine in my book. The track “Enemy Attack”, while taking a few cues from the PtK track “Ripping Corpse” in terms of intro, is especially amazing. These guys can thrash their asses off. This band ties for best showing here. However, there’s not a whole lot else I can say about them. They sound like they know exactly what they’re doing, and succeed at what they’re trying to achieve.
Enforcer doesn’t really make a huge impact. Both songs have vaguely memorable choruses, but they aren’t really anything to write home about. The singer sounds rather silly at times, but after Merciless Death, that’s easily put behind you. Pretty much just a couple of average thrash tunes, par for the course for this type of release.
The Toxic Holocaust songs kick ass, not particularly surprising. TH were, and still are IMO, one of the brightest stars in the thrash revival scene. “Created To Kill” is pretty standard TH stuff, and it didn’t make it onto any full-lengths by the band, which gives you one fairly compelling reason to buy this compilation if you are a big fan of Joel Grind and his work. Then there’s “War Is Hell”, and we have the highlight of the compilation. Easily the strongest song ever penned by Joel Grind, and one of the best NWOTM songs ever released. There is a reason that this song has appeared on two different full lengths by the band, and every compilation that Toxic Holocaust appeared on that I’ve heard. That catchy goddamn middle section, you just have to growl along every time you hear it: “WAR…is FU-CKING HELL…” So awesome.
Then we come to Hatred. The band gets a few points for having a fairly unique and demonic sounding singer, and they play with no small amount of passion, but their songs are pretty generic thrash metal. Easily skippable.
Finally, there’s Warbringer. Yeah, I know all the controversy about “War Without End”. I get it. A lot of people hate them. I don’t understand the rabid hate that Warbringer has amassed with their debut, and their most recent to date, “Empires Collapse”, was one of the greatest works of thrash in the last few years. But, putting all of this controversy behind us, the two Warbringer songs present on this compilation are fairly decent pieces of thrash. They aren’t as good as the Toxic Holocaust or Avenger Of Blood tracks, but they’re better than the other three bands, and definitely worth your time to hear.
So, after a careful consideration, I’d say that this album is worth buying, if you enjoy any kind of thrash, especially the really vicious, nasty kind that borders on blackened thrash or deathrash. If you see this CD at a local record store or wherever, and it’s for cheap, pick it up.
rafazardly 