Hellraiser "No Brain, No Pain" CD

In a time when most older thrash metal bands had either completely given up or had dramatically changed their sound to fit the times, Hellraiser doubled down on the genre. I would not describe it as what you'd expect from more raw sound of the 80's, it's far more refined than that. Towards the end of the 80s and early 90s, many bands had really begone to incorporate more variance and musicianship to their writing - i.e. Forbidden, Megadeth, Annihilator, Whiplash, Dark Angel, etc. I feel like No Brain, No Pain is a continuation of that shift towards musicianship.
They do experiment with slower tempos and effects, true, but the heart of it still has the attitude of thrash. That underlying adversarial feeling that a lot of bands had abandoned in favor of the apathetic indifference influenced by grunge at the time was still present throughout the entire album. And the riffs are properly TASTY, if I may use that term. Creative, layered, appropriate - there's not a note out of place in any of the songs. Also, even though they may slow down sometimes, the majority of the album is fast & in your face thrash. Properly headbangable at all times.
There's only a couple drawbacks that hinder this album from perfection that would make it truly a hidden gem. The tone & mixing on the album are pretty subpar, which is rather out of place next to the caliber of writing. You can tell they put in a LOT of effort into making this album as good as it possibly could be, but it sounds like they didn't have the tools to take it all the way. The only other point against this album is that there is nothing on it that particularly stands out. Everything is good, but all to the same level. I'm not meaning that all the songs sound the same, they're all different from each other in just the right way. But there's no song that I'd say "You've got to listen to it!," nothing I'd single out or get stuck in my head. The whole album flows beautifully, but there's no "oh dang, here it comes" moments. This said, both of these shortcomings I've mentioned are very minor, the music is still awesome and the tone is nowhere close to terrible.
Bottom line, it's 100% worth a listen, especially if you like the really well written later music of the first waves of thrash metal. This album might be largely forgotten if it was ever known to begin with, and that is a true shame.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Official promo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...