»14th February 2008

Music Review: Thrashing Like A Maniac

I was immensely disappointed with the paper for not printing my Saviours review, however, I've got to stick with the plan which is a relentless barrage of METAL in the hopes it might make the Leeds Student suck less. I could have gone into a lot more detail on this record but I have to keep things around the four hundred word mark as far as I'm aware. If they don't print this review, then they're even more stupid than I thought.

Thrashing Like A Maniac (Earache Records)

This compilation brings together a collection of various ‘new wave thrash’ bands with the bold claim on the cover that ‘thrash is back’. The album is like a crash course in this resurgence of thrash, with big names like Evile and Municipal Waste sitting alongside such newcomers as Bonded By Blood and Gama Bomb. Throughout the sixteen tracks there is a common approach to writing metal songs, that being, come up with some brutal riffs, stick a few wild solos in and never drop below 180bpm.
Huddersfield heavyweights Evile provide one of the album’s standout records, ‘Thrasher’. Evile are the sort of band who invite comparisons between listening to their music and being punched in the face. They call themselves ‘no nonsense’ and that shines through in their music which dispenses with all the progressive trappings so tempting to other bands, even if this comes at the price of musical diversity. This trend towards ‘cutting the bullshit’ is carried through the rest of the bands on the album. Whilst most of the first-wave thrash bands at some point flirted with more progressive leanings, this compilation has the dial firmly set to ‘old school’.


Check the atomic explosion in his mouth.

The compilation at times feels like one giant footnote back to 1983, in some ways this is part of its charm but there are also some highly dubious licks which sound uncannily like stray Slayer riffs. The very idea of a thrash compilation immediately brings to mind the famous Metal Madness compilations which acted as springboards for many bands most notably Metallica back in the early 80s. Whilst detractors could dismiss Thrashing Like A Maniac as mere ‘scene engineering’, with the relentless energy and gusto in each of the sixteen tracks, it is hard to remain cynical for long.
One nagging problem with the compilation is the tendency towards generic lyrics. There is little excusing some of the frankly comical lyrical content. Toxic Holocaust’s ‘War is Hell’ is pretty unsurprising in the message it is trying to get across and many would balk at songs called ‘Massive Execution’.
Interestingly, the album comes with a free zine harking back to the halcyon days of thrash in the mid-eighties and goes some way to reinforcing the idea the compilation is trying to get across, of a new resurgence in thrash metal after its fifteen year exile in the metal wilderness. If you engage the album on its own terms and don’t expect any particularly insightful lyrics, then there’s a lot of fun to be had here.

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In a daring move I decided to forego the usual 7/10 score and see if I can get away with giving no score, one of my previous reviews didn't get the score printed so hopefully they won't mind. Well, if they do mind they can go fuck themselves. On this review I tried to make greater use of phrases like 'cutting the bullshit' seeing as a) it's how I like to write the reviews if it were just for my own amusement and b) Metal Hammer and other defenders of the faith use the same style. So in conclusion, the music eds still don't know what they're talking about and won't reply to my emails even thanking me for providing them with grade A review material.


Extar, over, out.

79. If someone is especialy brutal say "HAIL MOTHERFUCKER"