Oops! All Early-90s Death & Thrash Metal Edition
Death Metal, Thrash Metal, Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Avant-Garde Metal... oh my!
Hey y’all. Guess what? All I’ve been listening to lately has been thrash and death metal. That means, all I have to share this week are capsule reviews of death and thrash metal. Funny how that works.
If you aren’t into this kind of thing, I completely understand and our regularly programmed “reviews of a broad variety of music” will resume eventually.
On with the reviews. What have you been stoked about lately? What have you been listening to? Let me know.
Icon legend:
⛏️ denotes picks of the week, my favs.
🌱 seedling denotes albums I liked, but may grow on me.
✨ means worth a look, if you like the genres listed in particular.
✂ denotes favourite tracks from a given record.
As always, please reach out on the hellsite, the better site, or join the Rosy Overdrive Discord server where I can be found now and again. You can also find me in the corners of Rate Your Music scrounging for obscure emo, hardcore, indie rock and pop punk.
Don’t forget: if you’re reading this in your email it will be cut off. Read on the web for the full list of reviews!
⛏️ Aggressor - Procreate the Petrifactions (1993)
Genre: Death Metal
I love how much people hate synths in metal/death metal, so whenever an album like this has some synth adornments I'm always like "fuck yeah buddy". Love the elements of groove here too - "Meaningless Life" hauls.
Worst thing happening on this is, you guessed it, it's almost 50 minutes and is a bit of a one-note thing once you get beyond the small little tweaks in personality. The one-note they have is "make really awesome, heavy as fuck songs" though so I don't mind one bit and the time kind of flew by, to be honest.
This really stands tall on the strength of it doing what many other bands do, just a bit better.
🌱 Krabathor - Only Our Death Is Welcome... (1992)
Genre: Death Metal, Thrash Metal
Wait a minute, Bart's teacher is named Krabathor!? I've been calling her Krandall!
Very enjoyable thrashy death metal. Not super fast stuff, but it hits the spot on the "does this make me want to drink shitty beer in a garage" scale. The fantasy/horror-tinged lyrics help out on that front for sure. Had a good time listening to this, since it takes the elements of both thrash and death that I like and wields them appropriately.
Definitely not crushing, or scary, or wildly heavy though, if that is what you are trying to find here. I think I might be an easy mark though, because when I'm trying to figure out if this lands at a 3 or a 3.5 on the star-rating scale I'm always feeling generous with the latter, haha.
⛏️ Krabathor - Cool Mortification (1993)
Genre: Death Metal
Cool Mortification you’ve got there… would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
Krabathor add some more intensity into their sound and lean a lot further towards what you would think of when you imagine main-genre tag Death Metal. They start tossing in pinch harmonics and heavier, dirtier riffing too.
This loses a little bit of the personality that made Only Our Death Is Welcome... endearing, but what it loses there it gains in gut-level effectiveness. Dig some of the neat bass performances on songs like "Without the Following Dawn" or the weird industrial percussive...thing... on "Forget the Gods", which add just enough of that personality back in here and there.
This is a good example of a record being better than the sum of its parts somehow. Someone could complain that this is standard stuff and I wouldn't argue with them, but when it works it works you know?
🌱 Messiah - Rotten Perish (1992)
Genre: Death Metal, Thrash Metal
Much more interesting than your average death/thrash records, lyrically speaking. Like anything, this is a product of its time, but it's definitely rare for an album in these genres to try and tackle songs about sexual assault, anorexia, Alzheimer's, and more while trying to weave them into a kind of "multiple tales of humanity" style presentation. It's not perfect by any stretch, but it's got high aspirations and that’s admirable.
The music kicks ass too - with a huge buzzed-out guitar tone that takes a second to get used to. Probably longer than it needs to be, but the concept allows for some forgiveness there.
🌱 Afflicted - Prodigal Sun (1992)
Genre: Death Metal, Technical Death Metal
Okay, brace yourselves but I'm about to describe a 90s death metal album as being "well rounded", "nicely balanced", with "just enough technicality". Maybe toss some "satisfying riffs" in there for good measure.
That said, there's some really nice moments of left-field tinkering - some acoustic moments, some space-rock riffing ("Ivory Tower") as well as a lightly psychedelic element to some of the guitar work. This really surprised me in its ability to be both exactly what you want from this era and the genre, while also doing some fun stuff you don't always get to hear.
🌱 Disgrace - Grey Misery (1992)
Genre: Death Metal
Heavy, groovy death metal with pretty nasty production. Super blown-out texture to pretty much all the instruments aside from the drums, which also sound kind of distant and buried. They blur together to create a really noisy wall of heaviness that surprisingly works for the oppressive atmosphere of the music. In particular, the filthy distorted bass lends a kind of noise rock element to some of the riffing. Cool stuff.
✨ Cadaver - ...In Pains (1992)
Genre: Death Metal, Technical Death Metal, Progressive Metal
Earache-released death metal that should probably share main-genre tags with some other more adventurous stuff. This really leans into a progressive/technical angle, and when it does do the death metal tremolo-blasting it's very measured and deliberate, usually interspersed with rhythmic twists and turns and some vaguely doom-y stoner-y riffing here and there. Then they throw in shit like flutes, double bass, and more (pretty sure we got some string instrument(s) on "Inner Persecution").
It's really wild to be honest, but it's one of those things where I really admire what they are doing here and I appreciate it while I'm listening, but I don't know about it becoming something I work into my regular rotation. Who knows though, I might reach for it again when I want something to shake me out of the usual sound.
Still, really interesting stuff that is worth looking into if it seems like it might be your jam.
✨ Confessor - Condemned (1991)
Genre: Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Technical Thrash Metal, Avant-Garde Metal
More out-there stuff. A mix of like, progressive thrash with doomy-meets-mathy riffing while also calling to mind what would end up becoming metalcore.
This is so all-over-the-place I wouldn't argue with someone claiming they are too out-there to listen to. The drummer is so damn sick though - some of the songs with meathead riffs ("Defining Happiness") remind me of Helmet if they were backed by a math rock drummer and fronted by someone who wished they were in Rush.
✨ Statue - Comes to Life (1990)
Genre: Thrash Metal, Progressive Metal, Heavy Metal
Really crisp thrash metal from Finland, very clearly influenced and/or inspired by the American scene. Good riff clarity here, with fun technicality but not in a wanking kind of way. Lyrically and vocally this isn't incredibly memorable, but the riffing is fun and pretty varied that it helps out.
Nothing to write home about, but I've heard much worse "also-rans" doing this kind of thing from the era.
Mortification - Mortification (1991)
Genre: Death Metal, Thrash Metal
Basically, the Christian version of OSDM albums. Honestly, this era of very straight-forward Death isn't always my cup of tea as I like it to have some more technical aspects. They get some heavy head-nodding riffs ("Satan's Doom") and crank the velocity up here and there ("No Return"). Even at under 40 minutes my interest in this started to drop off considerably. Not bad for what it is, I suppose.
That’s it, that’s all. Be excellent to one other.