I'll check out your recommendations Caveman.
Have you heard of Arkayic Revolt? They're local guys we've played with a half-dozen times. Really good old school thrash with a bit of modern stylings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGnI-VVnBBk
Yeah man, I like them a lot! They sent me their first EP after finding me on myspace and it's really good. I played it on the show quite a lot actually! I like Death's River too, though I didn't think it quite lived up to the promise of Undead Man Walking. I like Fatality's Beers From the Grave too, some good stuff on that though the production isn't brilliant...
I checked out both Evile (good god does their singer ever sound like Araya) and Havok. Havok are the Metallica album they never recorded. I really like it, but I'm not overly crazy about the vocals. Like I said though, these songs could have been recorded in 1988. Thrash is a very limiting genre. I might have just chosen badly representative songs, but neither of these bands are doing anything that hasn't been done by Slayer or Metallica before.
I'm not saying there are no good new thrash bands - far from it - but I haven't heard anything that would have been groundbreaking in the late 80s.
Which Evile did you listen to? Matt Drake's vocals are quite different from album to album... he's much better at actual singing now I think. The first album is kind of a straight cross between Slayer and Metallica, but it's more fun than either and has a really bouncy feel. The songwriting is pretty good too. The second album is much, much darker and far more ambitious, with a lot more slow parts. It's quite dense and feels impenetrable at times but they certainly added a massive dark element to their sound and it's quite a rewarding album if you put the time in. The new one is more accessible and is a bit dark but quite thrashy. I'm enjoying it and they've definitely got their own sound!
The Havok album, like I said it's not really representable by a single song, so checking out a couple of tracks doesn't give a true impression of the magnitude of the album. I checked out a couple a few months ago and enjoyed them but didn't have a proper listen all the way through until a few weeks ago. You need to listen to the whole thing three times through, and you'll be loving it. Like I said, it's quite diverse, with some really melodic bits, some totally brutal bits and plenty in-between. I'm also really digging the vocals a whole lot. The guy has a great high-pitched shrieky rasp that I love! But he also tries a few things through the course of the album - try the chorus in Killing Tendencies. I don't think it's fair to say they really sound like Metallica... It's thrash and it might not be breaking down musical barriers (and why should it have to?) but they've got their own identity, no doubt about it.
And for a band who are pushing the boundaries, you have to try Vektor's Black Future. Again, it needs three listens, all the way through. It's their debut and it is totally incredible, ambitious, epic, brutal, melodic, very
very technical... it's massive. It's my favourite album of the last decade. I've listened to it so many times. Devastatingly good!
Frankly I find Metallica's Death Magnetic to be some of the best they've ever done, and I don't know if their new Lou Reed thing can really be called Metallica. (But it does indeed sound terrible)
Megadeth's Endgame is solid, sounds like TH1RT3EN will be about as good...
Slayer's latest is easily their best since Seasons IMO.
With that said however, none of those albums are exactly mind-blowing, and there's many others as you've said that have just been straight up bad...
But no, I haven't paid enough attention to all these new Thrash bands, for the exact reasons you listed, I'll try to listen to them more from now on.
I didn't mind Death Magnetic but the production is disgusting and the songwriting for me is lacklustre compared to the old days and Kirk is being outshredded x 1000000 by Ol Drake from Evile, David DiSanto and the rest of the younger guys!
I still don't think Megadeth's new one is going to touch Endgame, which in turn doesn't touch Rust In Peace...
Woh......"Omega Wave" is among the best records released over the past 5 years.....and is nearly flawless! (To these ears at least. And I'm not a 'fanboy' as this is my first Forbidden album!)
I
love Forbidden. Twisted Into Form is as good an album as exists anywhere in the world, and their debut is great too. I did a 26-hour round trip on a bus to see them last year. They changed their sound in line with the musical climate at the time on Distortion and Green and I don't really enjoy those two. But I had really high hopes for Omega Wave. It has some really good stuff (Adapt or Die, Hopenosis, Dragging My Casket, Omega wave) but about half the album I could easily leave. Overthrow is rubbish, and Swine doesn't do much for me either. Still live in hope that the next one might blow my mind though!
I started with Paradox the reverse way with "Riot Squad". I'm amazed on how heavy and technical the band is.
Obviously I started to track down the previous albums, "Electrify" is damn good too and I was amazed by "Heresy". I was expecting rawer stuff and got punched by the melodic conceptual approach of the album.
Needless to say "Product Of Imagination"it's on my way. Sadly "Collision Course" hasn't been re-issued and the available copies are expensive.
I most probably gonna take on Evile new one too.
Heresy is one of my favourite albums. Pretty perfect melodic slightly-tech thrash! Product isn't quite as mature, though still not a terrible album.
Everyone should also check out Mutant's Laserdrome EP too. It's bloody brilliant!
). I think there's no need to compare newer band to classic, both are doing they're share.
