Fuck Off - Hell On Earth (1990)

The funny thing about revenge is that it is not a dish best served cold, but a disc served through hot riffing, cohesive songwriting and an enhanced lust for life. Hell On Earth is engaged in such a fight for existence, an album that manages to exceed the grasp of its piss-poor predecessor within only a matter of minutes. No, this is not where I start heaping praises upon this sophomore platter from the Spaniards, but I have to begrudgingly admit that...well...it's not all bad. There was a new vocalist here, Pep Casas, and he's got a nice edge to his throat that reminds me of some rugged Germanic mid-ranged speed metal, albeit with the slight touches of his native accent. The guitars retain their crisp balance from the debut, but here they are already off and running through the gates with superior riffing as early as the intro chug.

Yes, loyal listeners, Fuck Off has heard your complaints, and their answer was all in the name. After popping out the cassette from the tape deck in your stacked motor vehicle, you could rest assured that what you just heard was a thrash album. You may immediately be reaching for another album which is 10x or 100x better than Hell On Earth, but the 45 minutes you just spent were not entirely in vain, and you probably got your head banging to the seductive lyrics and flagrant fouling of the Slayer/Metallica influence in the riffs.

Daughters of Solitude, sexual frustration,
insatisfaction and represion,
obscene obsessions, mistress of Satan,
hot sulfur, terryfying dreams
enduring penetration.
Demonic forces, absolute satisfaction,
black and hot sperm into the abdomen.

Truly, Fuck Off's "Witch (Hell Below the Belly)" is one of the more thoughtful odes to the feminine form to feature in the dawn of the Naughty Nineties, and some measure of tumescence was achieved at this daemonic orgy. But the ride does not end here, as "Blasphemy" carves out another pound of flesh from its simple but extremely Slayer-ific bulldozing. Pep's accent here is pretty kickass, from the sinister rap of his verse to the deeper, death metal grunts he doth evoke. "Midnight Confession" is rather a clutter, which can't even come close to comparing with the previous two songs, and is better skipped, but "Whom You Never to Say His Name" arrives in a flurry of riffing not unlike Sentinel Beast or a more anthemic Tankard track.

"Don't You Have Fear" is a dull slammer, and the latter half of the album does seem to drift apart in terms of quality, with only the forward charge of "Inquisición" to really provoke a head banging response from me. The rest are mediocre at best, some falling to the level of Another Sacrifice, and in particular the instrumental indulgence of "Cyclone" is a rambling exercise in bass guitar and the occasional thrash riff that would have served better in another song. But, at the very least, HALF of this album saw Fuck Off at the prime of their career, writing some sexualized, dark occult speed/thrash metal which is actually worth a damn. No glaring recommendation from this author, but Hell On Earth destroys the debut album and if you're itching to hear what Spain was producing for this style before the grunge and death struck and disintegrated the thrash reign, you could do worse. The logo was so nice appeared on the cover twice, and now I fuck off and bid you adieu.

Highlights: Witch (Hell Below the Belly), Blasphemy, Whom You Never To Say His Name

Verdict: Indifference [6/10] (human holocaust screaming out to die)

Fuck Off - Another Sacrifice (1988)

In the annals of thrash metal, it would seem Spaniards Fuck Off have already precluded any criticism of their work by means of the provocative moniker. This was probably wise, because Another Sacrifice is a pretty miserable effort upon which there is no positive light I can cast. I have a high standard for thrash/speed metal, since it has produced the majority of my favorite metal albums. Part of this standard is that I believe bands should maintain an awareness of what is happening around them. Whether by willful ignorance or the exploitation of another record label out to sign every late 80s thrash band in sight to turn a buck, Fuck Off released a debut which was certainly aware of a few little American bands known as Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth. The problem is that they fail to come up with anything remotely as gripping or catching as those could 3-5 years earlier, and we are left with Another Sacrifice to the gods of mediocrity.

There are a few aspects to this album which do not suck, and these would be the cruising guitar tone and a few of the lead exchanges, as in the track "Maniac" or the descending pattern that opens "The Last Flight". Original Fuck Off vocalist Joe has a weird style which betrays his accent (after all, some of the lyrics are in Spanish) through a nasally, oft annoying tone. This will occasionally border on something catchy (again, the chorus to "Maniac"), without failing to cross. to be brutally honest, it seems like a third of this album was delivered by a band open for business, but the rest is dull and uninspired thrashing by numbers which could not compete with even the 2nd or 3rd tiers of the stuff pouring out of Europe at the time. Spain was surely under-represented during the hi-top street metal era, so the band may have gotten a bit of buzz as a novelty. While waiting between the average leads on the album (which are the best thing you'll find within), you are treated to such substandard pecking as "The Last Flight", the Maiden-bass infusion of "Awaiting Your Death", the quick train to nowhere that is the title track, and the closer "Born to Die", in which the chorus features some hot man on man action.

Normally I develop a natural sympathy for obscure, cult records in the thrash metal genre, but there is some barrier preventing me from even the slightest real praise. At the very best, the album is soddenly plain, and no amount of Slayer covering (the band takes a spin with "Black Magic" here, which only serves to confirm how weak their own riff writing was) can make up for it. No worthwhile riffing. No intensity lashing out from its dusted vinyl visage. No dice. You could randomly pin the tail on the donkey of any European country and come up with a better thrash album in 1988 than Another Sacrifice. In a year with so much creative and talented output, this album barely qualified for the bargain bin.

Highlights: putting the old beast down, so it would not suffer another step.

Verdict: Fail [4/10]