Accu§er - The Forlorn Divide (2016)

Accu§er was never a band I cared to follow too closely until I had gone into my extensive German thrash review cycle some years ago, largely because in the 80s they were vaguely decent at best, never really appealing to me as much as their peers. Like a lot of other thrash acts, they struggled a little to redefine themselves in the muddled 90s, when grunge and groove were taking over and the more traditional strains of metal were temporarily sunk alongside emergent black and death underground. It wasn't until 2013's Diabolic that I came away really impressed; they had managed to draft forward all of their strengths from the first decade into the modern production standards, ramp up the technicality a fraction and come away with a damn solid 21st century thrash album that shunned neither its roots nor its contemporaries. I can't be the only one who noticed, since they inked a deal with Metal Blade soon after.

I'm happy to report that The Forlorn Divide continues this path, with what is arguably the band's most thorough and involved record to date, a bruising nowadays thrash album which manages to even up its groove game...you'll hear some comparisons to the 'busier' bands of this ilk, maybe a Devildriver, but they are fully fused into Accu§er's longstanding thrash backbone and don't seem to be grabbing for any low-hanging fruit. I mean if you're truly averse to chugging and moderate speed breakdowns, this album is not likely to draw you in, but I think they handle it without lowering themselves to any pedestrian meathead standards, and so much of the album is fixed in that Bay Area thrash circa a Testament or Defiance, which was almost always the case here; Accu§er never had that much in common with the Teutonic 'Big Three' in terms of how they structured their music, beyond just the thrash tag itself. A more bricklaying, blue collar, brute style was applied and then splashed with the frenzied leads and other flair that represented the traditional, non-punk dimension of thrash...

I mention that, because this is an area in which I feel The Forlorn Divide excels. The leads and bridge rhythms in tracks like "Lust for Vengeance" are catchy, interesting, and satisfying, the product of great care when composing. This does create a little imbalance with the verse riffing, which is a little more of that simplicity, heard-before, groove thrash style, although to their credit it's more complex than what you'd expect of a band that makes it their entire medium. They do have some faster pieces, like "Unreal Perception", which actually does sound like a fusion of late 80s Sepultura or Slayer with their countrymen Sodom, especially in the vocal department. Frank Thoms uses a blunt and bloody vocal tone, which admittedly isn't my favorite among the German veterans, but he's also multi tasking with the rhythm guitars, so I can be a little more forgiving, especially because he sounds sincere, angry and effective. The bass sounds fat, pummeling and excellent on this disc, not only where it's allowed to breathe on its own (intro to "Tribulation") but even along the rhythms.

Plenty of variation between faster and mid-paced tracks. A little bit of filler, like the dull but brief intro of clean guitars, and maybe about 25% of the riffs don't really land anywhere interesting, but I don't have any doubts that Accu§er put a lot of effort into coming up with something that sounded true to itself, but was able to lock horns with whatever ephemeral concept of 'contemporary' thrash is present in the 'teens. Note for note, track for track I did not enjoy this as much as its predecessor Diabolic, but I think Frank Thoms and company are putting out the strongest material of their careers, and I'm happy to acknowledge it after so many middling or negative reactions I had to so many items in their discography.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10] (determined to persist)

https://accuser.de/