The ultimate death/thrash classic from 1990 finally, after more than 30 years, again available on limited (333) music cassette.
Wow. Just wow. That's the most intense and extreme record I've ever heard and it isn't even in the most objectively intense/extreme genre there is in the realms of metal. Screw Reign In Blood, if I want to thrash this is the record to spin, holy cow. To think this record wasn't well-known until the age of the internet baffles me. Well, this release probably wasn't well known because the label they were on specialized in Mexican metal bands and Morbid Saint is from, as we all know, the pinnacle of Latin culture in North America, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Yeah, so definitely not helping being on a label from Mexico that wasn't that big or well-known, like RoadRunner/RoadRacer or Combat Records, where Death, Possessed and many other death and thrash bands were signed. Another contributing factor to not being very well-known was that even though this album was recorded in 1988, it released 2 years later in 1990, after the brutal thrash craze that produced Darkness Descends, The Ultra-Violence, etc and the formations of death metal from Florida's very own Death and Morbid Angel. By 1990 Entombed, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Pestilence, Death and Morbid Angel were top dogs. This album is a monster, it's my favorite thrash album and I intend to tell you why. Let's delve into this masterpiece of thrash, shall we?
This album gives you only one break for the whole duration, a 42 second instrumental that shares the name of the album. Other than this the whole entire album is an audio assault of unforeseen ferocity matched by few, if any. From the 2-4 minute skirmishes to the 7 minute wars, this album kills everything in its wake, and the battleground is left in flames. The 3 songs I can never get enough of on this record and the best representations of the band are the 2 seven minute long songs, "Assassin" and "Scars" and the 2 minute "Damien" with one of the best breakdowns I have ever heard in a metal song. The vocal delivery from Pat is one of the best vocal performances in thrash. His vocals are black metal vocals, there's no doubt in my mind about that, just listen to him. The speed and aggression blows anything from the bay area or Germany out of the water and out of the atmosphere. The bass player and drummer are great, and these riffs along with the occasional solos throughout are chaotic, but well crafted. Morbid Saint is an untamed beast on this LP and it goes to show how death metal and thrash metal can be so close to one another, but still distinct. Other songs that are amazing are the opening track and the last track, but everything here is perfection. The production is what we talk about next, as is tradition, and I really like the production
This production is raw and it really serves this music so well, I love how the drums sound, they are loud and brutal, and they have an infectious sound, definitely one of my favorite drum sounds on an album, along with the drum sounds on Katatonia's debut as well as Carnage's "Dark Recollections" On another note, this album has a decent bass mix that can be difficult to hear at times, but when you can hear it, it is properly mixed with the drums and guitar and does it's job. I have a feeling that the bass is amazing when they play live. The album may be raw, but isn't so much so that it takes away from the quality of the recording. It's a purposefully executed raw sound, and one of the best examples of how rawness doesn't mean unintelligible sound.
All in all this is another one of my top 15 albums, which after i'm done writing 100's for LP's, I will post the list on my profile page. This album blows me away and it always puts me in a great mood, it's a lesser known thrash classic that's been coming back in popularity due to the internet and the Relapse Records guys having a good radar for classic and forgotten material. Definitely an album to spin if you want to repair everything in your house, and usually when that's the case, you have a thrash masterpiece on your hands. Enjoy this one, folks, listen as soon as possible.
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