Almost falling fowl of my OCD scythe (get your ID3 tags set properly guys, please!) I found myself in a charitable mood and gave this album a chance, and boy am I glad I did. ‘Blackened Thrash’ they call it, the ‘blackened’ prefix is a bit of needless bandwagoning if you ask me, as this is old-school, brutal thrash with a bit of Death in the mix, which in essence aligns it with proto-BM of the early 80′s.

As the album title suggest, this is an album about Mars with lyrical themes that resemble Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom sequence set in the Warhammer universe. This violent thread sees Earth pitched against Mars in a bloody holy war of epic proportions in the year 2222AD. Native Martian rulers sit high upon Olympus Mons while their minions sacrifice themselves in the name of the Martian Gods, to be slaughtered by Earth’s heretic hordes. Perhaps allegorical, this fantasy yarn exists in a parallel universe without hope of mercy, and is the perfect landscape for Scorched-Earth’s vicious racket.

Mars is a bile-filled, unrelenting attack on the senses, registering somewhere between Sodom, and recent era Darkthrone, almost matching the demonic duo for punkish intensity and old school credibility. The production is as raw as a gangrenous, frost-bitten toe – utterly unprocessed and equally as unapologetic. Every instrument registers, demonstrating a prodigious level of technique and artistry whilst staying loose and lean – this album could have been recorded live, and is no worse because of it. The quantity of gold-standard riffs packed in here is nothing short of staggering, each one demanding to be acknowledged – the track Devils in Iron alone has enough riffage to fill a Gama Bomb album. At times Scorched-Earth venture into doomish territory, as with the bludgeoning instrumental No Blade of Grass, which includes some jazzy bass work and gargantuan riffs, but for the most part Mars remains (and as much as I hate using clichés, but I can think of no more appropriate way of describing it) fast and furious.

Some of the tracks here hang around longer than they should, and at 53 minutes Mars is overlong as a thrash album – 10 minutes could be hacked away and the album would benefit. However, there’s more conviction, energy and credibility than here a hundred Municipal Wastes. Thematically this Mars is considered and immersive, I’d love to read the novelisation. This is a master-class in the essence of thrash, if not metal in general, and reminder of what it’s supposed to be about. Up there with this year’s must have albums.

Scorched-Earth Website

Scorched-Earth Myspace

Revocation’s hype stateside has failed to translate into a particularly big splash either side of the Atlantic. Their confusing mix of thrash/death and guitar god faux-eclecticism may go some way to explaining this. Broken into its constituent parts it’s very convincing indeed, and perhaps this is why Cosmo Lee mistook them for “the next great metal band” – they may well be at some point, but they ain’t there yet.

There’s some riffery to die for here driving some brutal thrash that will turn the head of even the most sceptical. But from beneath the maelstrom seeps a latent melody that sets them apart from the Death pack, although it’s often flattened by unsubtle sub-death vocals – competent, but perhaps the least impressive part of Revocation’s armoury.

Then there’s the godlike guitar virtuosity from new kid on the block David Davidson who any point he sounds like Satriani, Petrucci, Vai, Bettencourt (yes, you heard me right) among others, each with their respective stylistic ensemble. This is lovely, it really is. However, on too many occasions these virtuoso passages are clumsily tacked on the end of, or shoved into the middle of songs that they have no right to be in. Occasionally this works, but for the most part it just makes you think “That’s really cool, but why did you put it there?” This is not a merging of styles, it’s different songs being clumsily selotaped together, and it’s just a distraction from the main event – state of the art metal.

I commend Revocation’s efforts to do something different, however it just doesn’t hold together. Davidson needs to go exorcise his frustrated guitar god and make a solo album, then concentrate on making Revocation the great band they could be.

Fun, comfortable, unchallenging. Should these words be applied to something calling itself Thrash Metal? It’s not easy to say this, but that’s how I perceive Municipal Waste.

Harking back to the early days of Thrash, when it was as much a product of Punk than Metal, Municipal Waste make a heady, energetic noise that does exactly what the likes of DRI and Exodus did nearly 25 years ago. This is all nice and lovely, but certainly not essential.

The Waste spearheaded the recent thrash revival, which I greeted with utter enthusiasm at first, followed by nervous anticipation ending with mild disappointment. This style of thrash is fun and really gets your head nodding, but it’s so lacking in substance. While Exodus were making Bonded in Blood, Slayer were churning out the seminal Reign in Blood, Metallica Master of Puppets, Megadeth Peace Sells. These albums tore up the rulebook and pushed boundaries. That the recent Thrash revival seems to stop dead at this paradigm-shift is typical of flagrant lack of adventurousness displayed by Municipal Waste and others. If the bands that MW reference so heavily didn’t already have their tongue’s lurking in cheek territory, then we’d be talking about them is the same context as The Darkness and Steel Panther.

Massive Aggressive sounds like their previous album and has some utterly superb old-school riffage. The lyrical themes are stoopid and overall this is totally unchallenging, but that’s OK, you weren’t intending to listen to this sober anyway were you?

Struggling to keep up with Metallica‘s creative frenzy – 3 devastatingly original and critically lauded albums – and failing to live up to former glories of the genre defining Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?, in 1990 Dave Mustaine finally managed to assemble the dream team and record the album of their career, and the first great metal album of the 90′s.

Thrash Metal - serious business

Rust in Peace is a pounding epic of fiercely technical speed metal displaying some of the best musical prowess seen in the genre. As guitar solos go, there’s many to choose from. Mustaine enlisted solo guitar prodigy Marty Friedman to great effect sparring from one guitar duel to the next. The guitar is king here – indeed, track 2, Hangar 18, is practically all guitar solo.

It is Friedman who has the finest moment on the exhilarating Tornado of Souls. Unlike many metal solos, which  often trade-in melody for technical trickery or brute force, there is beauty and subtlety here, and it is the very heart of the song. Often cited as one Friedman’s best solos, it’s probably one of the best ever recorded.

Jeff Waters is one of the unsung heros of the Thrash era. This may be because of his silly fringe, or that despite Annihilator being responsible for some of the most technical and exhilarating music of the movement, they are also responsible for some real toss, including some very ill-advised balladry. That aside, Jeff’s guitar wizardry makes Kirk Hammett’s skills seem pedestrian and unimaginative, and Dave Mustaine’s sloppy.

Fun Palace is my favourite Annihilator song, which, un-coincidentally, contains one of my favourite guitar solos.  About 3 and quarter minutes in (just past the bit with the King Diamond style helium vocals) the song tumbles into the exhilarating build up from which the frenzied yet controlled solo bursts forth. This is more than just widdles, but a brutal and assured demonstration of pure skill and technical mastery. The fact that he can play it note perfect live is just plain irritating – Jeff you need to try harder at sucking.

Welcome to the fun palace? Bow down and worship the king!

Some hairy men

How cool is it when you find a band that’s like all your favourite stuff mixed up into one tasty package? I remember someone saying that about ill-fated aussie Nirvana-meets-the-Beatles rockers The Vines. They were wrong. But they did have some good tunes (Get Free is wall nutting fun).

No-one ever told me that Valient Thorr were like all my favourite stuff mixed up (more likely they would tell me that my beard is going gray, or perhaps that I have pizza where my brain should be) but perhaps they should have done, as listening to Immortalizer makes me go all mid 80’s. It’s  a rather fashionable mix of mosh-baiting thrash, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Stoner. Delightful. They guys should be the biggest band in the world right?

Unfortunately, they just can’t maintain heady mix for the whole album which tends to feel like a AC/DC covers band on speed at a full listen.

Never the less, it’s unselfconsciously stupid (more Exodus than Steel Panther) and a whole lot of fun.

Infinite Lives is kicks off like Megadeth if the lightened up, then descends into Stoner anarchy.

http://www.last.fm/music/Valient+Thorr/_/Infinite+Lives

They’re supporting Mastodon in London next week, which will be much like Bon Jovi opening for Radiohead.