Funeral Rain Press Corps

Genre: Thrash

Label: Heavy Artillery Records

It’s always fun to hear about a band that you picked up a demo from at one of their shows has been signed to one of your favorite labels. Even better is when they finally release that much anticipated debut EP. Better still? When their nine track full length album finally hits your ears! Best of fucking all?!  It ends up being the best goddamn thrash album you’ve heard all year!

If the album cover doesn’t give it away, Excruciator play on the darker side of thrash. (Less Tankard more Kreator, you know?) The kind of thrash that can boarder on death metal if one is only kind of listening to it in the background. So it’s no real surprise that Devouring is as fucking fast and fucking vicious as you would expect an album called Devouring by a band named Excruciator to be! Also note that eight of these nine tracks are original songs, the one exception being the immortal Nuclear Exmortus.

Lyrically, Devouring is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Excruciator: Booze, violence, war, glory holes, cheese graters and catheters! Instrumentally, Excruciator  plays tighter and more focus than ever before here. Every solo sounds like it wasn’t a first take “fuck it”. The vocals sound better than previous efforts as well. I mean, I dug the vocals in past releases too. It’s just that here, they sound like true, menacing thrash vocals!

Disciples Of Menace is easily the best new song on the album. It’s got everything! Rage filled lyrics, hot handed thrash riffs, classic drum beats and a wildly driving bass line! Not since the first time I heard Peace Sells have bass chops like that been stuck in my noggin.

And what’s this? Devouring closes with a cover of Onslaught’s Metal Forces?!?!? …no? Oh poo. Nice tease dickholes!

…still and awesome song though.

Overall: Devouring is a 100% thrash attack!!! And you know that Excruciator is only going to get better from here.

9.5/10

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Genre: Thrash, Punk, Blackened Thrash

Label: Relapse Records

Yes! I’ve been waiting for three years to get my hands on some new Toxic Holocaust material! Conjure And Command couldn’t of come at a better time too. It seems that every act in Portland, Oregon (NOTE: Toxic Holocaust originated in Florida, hence the, “in Portland” and not, “from Portland”) and their cousins are releasing material about the same time. And so far, it’s all unbelievably awesome! Let’s cross our fingers and and see where Mr. Grind & Co. are taking us this time around…

Joel Grind ditched being a solo thrash master before recording Toxic Holocaust’s successful 2008 album, An Overdose Of Death. Continuing to find strength in numbers, Toxic Holocaust is once again a trio of semi-blackened thrash and punk driven madness! Bassist Philthy Gnaast plays his fours stringer like anyone else who feels under-appreciated: loud and aggressive so that somebody will hear you and go, “Dude, you fucking kick ass!” Well, Phil… Dude, you fucking kick ass! (Appreciation!) Meanwhile, drummer Nikki Rage trots and bangs his way through Conjure And Command at a pace that’s more befitting someone who’s more accustomed to playing sludgecore… oh wait. He’s in Kingdom Of Sorrow? Now I get it. Personally, I think he sounds much better in Kingdom Of Sorrow. In Toxic Holocaust, he just kinda lags behind and drags the whole album down a bit.

Joel’s voice has gone through a bit of a change since the last album. His blackened rasp has been scaled back for some songs to the point of almost being a traditional thrash/punk shout… sort of. But what can be said for sure, would have to be Joel’s continuation of cranking out some insane thrash riffs that you may or may not of heard before. Some of them sound like inverted or rearranged versions of Witchmaster and Artillery songs. Either way, they’re original enough for me to bang my fucking skull to!

And maybe it’s because of that, Conjure And Command has a sense of redundancy that one doesn’t exactly want in there new release from a fresh thrash act. But then again, maybe that’s just me…

Overall: Conjure And Command is probably Toxic Holocaust’s weakest album to date… and it’s still worthy of your time. If you’re a fan of Toxic Holocaust, then you’ll undoubtibly dig this one. If not, start off with Evil Never Dies and listen chronologically until you get to this one.

7/10

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Genre: Thrash, Progressive

Label: Sonic Unyon Metal

I’m going to start off this review by saying that I am only a moderate fan of Voivod. Moderate in the sense that I only own three Voivod albums (War And Pain, Nothingface and Killing Technology), but I love them to death! So, the fact that I squealed like a little obsessed fan girl at the announcement of Warriors Of Ice in my inbox should come as no surprise to anyone. “Voivod live… on CD?” I thought. “It’s not at the Roseland, but it’s damn good enough for me!”

Starting off stronger than just about any band I’ve ever heard (be in person or just recorded live) with Voivod, these Canadian thrashers show that time has not, nor will it slow them down! Snake sounds just as pissed off and drunk as ever, stopping between tracks to banter with the audience. Blacky’s opening bass riff in Tribal Convictions is just as bone jarring as anything I’ve heard from him already, as well as any other time we get the privilege of hearing his bass booming through the rest of the band’s super tight performance.

The selection of songs on Warriors Of Ice is a perfect blend of older, more thrashier songs and just as equally old and every bit as cool prog-thrash songs. In other words, they play all of my favorites from the three albums I already own and the others that are new to me are icing of the goddamned cake!

I can’t even really say anything about the quality of the recording! It’s honestly one of the best sounding live albums I’ve ever heard (outside of Nevermore’s Year Of The Voyager). It lets just the right amount of atmospheric pops and feedback bleed through just to let you know that this is, in fact, a live recording. Well, that and the rabid, screaming Canuks in attendance…

Interestingly enough, the song Warriors Of Ice is nowhere to be found on this live album… :(

Overall: Warriors Of Ice is a strong entry in Voivod’s already Herculean library. I recommend this album to anyone who digs Voivod even a little. Please. Indulge.

9.5/10

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Genre: Scottish Pirate Metal
Label: Napalm Records

Ah, Scotland. The home of golf, haggis, bagpipes, and the kilt. And high seas piracy?
Sing-along choruses and Scottish instruments fill these riff and hook soaked songs of whiskey, rum, the ocean, squids, and whores. Don’t forget the whores. Elements of punk, thrash, and folk metal all come together to form this voyage, and in all it’s a pretty epic tale indeed.
Favorite tracks are “Buckfast Powersmash”, “Scraping the Barrel”, and the album closer (and longest track) “Death Throes of the Terrorsquid”.
7 out of 10.

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