Exumer - The Raging Tides (2016)

I've never had the same level of cult appreciation for Exumer as some other thrash heads. To me they were on the level of a group like Assassin, or Necronomicon, who put out one solid 80s album before an inconsistent sophomore, then quickly faded into obscurity rather than aligning with the Teutonic masters in the field. Of course, just about every damn one of those B or C-list groups have now reformed, with varying results...hell, even S.D.I. just recently put out a new record. Exumer has gotten some praise for not only putting together some competent material for their 21st century run, but managing to improve themselves in the process. I can't say that for the band's proper reunion record, Fire & Damnation, but I can see why the group's fourth record, The Raging Tides, turned some heads before it commenced banging them, because if nothing else, it's about as consistently 80s as you could wish for.

Now, don't take that as a glaring recommendation, because I still find the band's style a little generic and indistinct when there are so many other options, but unlike some bands...say Onslaught, who took on a pretty heavily 90s influenced thrash aesthetic via Pissing Razors or Pantera, Exumer has dropped an effort here that would have fit right in after Rising from the Sea and blown that disc to barnacles...err smithereens. This is unrelenting, energetic, full of choppy Bay Area style riffing and never scums out into some Lolapalooza mosh groove for dudes with bad tribalz. Granted, there's not a single damn new or interesting thing going on in the riffing department, but the tone is decent, and the riffs are at least hooky enough that you won't complain about them sucking, with a balance between more frenetic, tremolo picked passages and beloved, mid-paced Exodus meatheadedness. The leads are all well-placed, if frivolous, and the drums have a nice snap to them that kicks you along. You could probably cut and paste this stuff onto any number of other recent thrash albums that are informed by the members' 80s record collections, and then swap those albums' riffs onto this without skipping a beat, but hey, it functions.

Vocally they still remind me a lot of a mashup between other bands like Tankard and Vendetta, but the vocals are actually really well produced, as are the backing gang shouts. The lyrics read as if they could have been written for any decade, timeless and not terribly topical. I also thought the cover art was cool, they gotta stick with their mascot in total 80s thrash fashion, so you've got this Jason Voorhees looking dude representing on what looks like an old illustrated horror poster, bursting from the logo, with some extra skulls, fire and...nooses to fill up that negative space. They also include a pair of covers that are weird...the doomier "Forever My Queen" from Pentagram, which they mange to thrashen up a little with a nice lead. They also really amplify their cover of Grip Inc.'s "Hostage to Heaven" and make it sound more fiery with some gnarly vocals that often border on Exodus sneer. This was one of my fave tracks on the disc, along with some originals like "Death Factory" and "There Will Always Be Blood", and it really fits in with their own material. A decent offering here, if not outstanding, a slight improvement over Fire & Damnation, which wasn't so bad itself.

Verdict: Win [7/10] (desecrate your lives in vain)

http://www.exumer.de/

Exumer - Fire Before Possession: The Lost Tapes (2015)

There is occasionally a charm to a band's earlier recordings, before they got bigger and hit the studio for a more professional stab at stardom. Now, how much 'bigger' Germany's Exumer ever got is in debate, but the band would go on to release a couple cult 80s thrash records, and then reform way in the future for an even more steady and productive phase in their career. Fire Beyond Possession: The Lost Tapes is a humble collection of recordings that narrowly predate their debut, and of course are delivered in a much rougher fashion, though they've been remixed so that they can sound at least tolerable through your speakers in the 21st century. Here is a case where one can certainly experience that 'charm' I mentioned, but there are some notable flaws that no amount of mastering is going to fix, and slightly mar the personality that the music was going for.

Now the material is here is literally 8/9ths of the Possessed by Fire debut album, as you might have guessed from this thing's title, and most of that is raw demo quality. I actually dig the mix quite a lot, with the crazy amount of reverb on Mem von Stein's vocals, and he sounds a lot crazier on these recordings, almost like a mix of early 80s Petrozza, Angelripper and Tom Araya. The rhythm guitar sounds pretty driving and awesome, and the drums very splashy, with the bass present enough to add some beef to the tunes, if not anything more interesting. I do think the lead guitar passages are a bit loud, and like a lot of these old takes it feels very compressed and muffled due to the tape transfer. I also felt a few points where something seemed to cut out a little in one or the other speaker but I suppose that's to be expected from this sort of throwback production. I can't imagine that I would ever listen to this over Possessed by Fire, an album I dig, just not as much as other thrash worshipers, but even in these more primitive passes the material sounds energetic and thriving, it simply does not stand out stylistically or by composition as much as the band's more popular peers did.

I would have liked it if they included the entire original demo, A Mortal in Black as a bonus there, one of the tracks is missing, but you're getting two of those songs anyways. Or maybe a couple of rare, unreleased tunes that never saw the light (maybe they all did, I have no idea). But for a limited press, to the few folks that will actually want their hands on this (it was originally tapes that the group just handed out to people), there's nothing really wrong with this release. It would do little but gather some dust for me, but if you're really in love with that debut album and want to hear it in a more rough around the edges or live context, this might be something you want to buy on CD or 12" vinyl and toss into your collection.

Verdict: Indifference [5.75/10]

http://www.exumer.de/

Virus - Memento Collider (2016)

Memento Collider hits you up front with the most mystique of all the Virus albums, the jazzy, walking bass lines of "Afield" served up with eerie guitar strums and those almost preachy-sounding spoken word narratives that the band had really mastered on the previous disc, The Agent That Shapes the Desert. To a group already so experimental, this already felt even further along the axis of weirdness, with just the right amount of progression and spin on the band's thick, low-end driven formula that it feels like a distinct step. There are also pieces, like this one, which seem almost as if they were largely improvisational, especially with all those breaks in its belly, which don't seem super polished but really pay off when the group erupts back into the jangling upper strings and beats.

Elsewhere, it does feel a little more practices and coherent, like "Rogue Fossil", one of my favorite Virus tracks in general for that amazing, bouncing blend of bass and guitars, almost like a Fugazi exponentially evolved into something more mesmerizing, melancholy in motion. The hues this band casts here are almost all shades of grey like the cover itself, and the material sounds like a mind starting to unravel in some corporate clean-space, stimulating itself with disjointed grooves. Those odd Voivod-like chords, with the saturation removed, clash into the more dextrous little fills and trills perfectly, and there are occasionally these walls of odd, vibrant chords which almost remind me of late 80s Sonic Youth and all their unusual tunings. Though the band will swap between tempos and riffing structures, I would actually say that a lot of the material is very consistent together, this is not a highly diverse album in of itself, but within even this little niche they find ample territory to explore that the full 45 minute experience never once bores me, and only tires me out due to the exhilaration and helplessness that comes with the realization I could never think up something this goddamn cool.

The one exception might be the closer "Phantom Oil Slick", because here is a track where for me the guitars came across just as level and powerful as those bass lines, with neither suffering. But even that, with the similar vocals gels so well with the material leading up to it, though I wasn't entirely sucked into the slower, broken ambient segue in the bridge, at least not until the bass finally takes over as the dominant instrument with the sparser chords splayed out above it. The title is too fitting though since this part of the song makes you think you're out on some foggy sea, drifting in a rowboat and perhaps running afoul of said oil slick. At any rate, listening to these Virus albums now for review is kind of making me sad that I won't get another one. Ved Buens Ende will be close enough, but interesting genius like this is all too rare, and even if I love this album a fraction less than Agent, it's still another one that will remain timeless escapism for when I need to exit the monotonies of my existence, or find new things hiding in the shadows in the corner of that reality. Inspired.

Verdict: Epic Win [9.25/10]

http://virusnorway.com/

Tankard - Hymns for the Drunk (2018)

The third in a trilogy of absolutely worthless compilations cashing in on the good Tankard name, Hymns for the Drunk is another unjustifiable release in the age of the cell-phone, the internet, the streaming service, where any fan of the band can put his ripped (legally or illegal) alcoholic thrash tunes into a random playlist and generate much the same result. While Noise and Sanctuary were the first two culprits with their Hair of the Dog and Oldies & Goldies anthologies, here it is AFM reprinting material from the Germans' five-album tenure on that label, including B-Day, Beast of Bourbon, the wonderful Beauty and the Beer, Thirst, and Vol(l)ume 14. They even include some stuff from the Best Case Scenario compilation which was already made up of re-recordings of early 80s material from the Noise Records years...yes, that is the sound of me smacking myself upside the head with a big fat mug of fucking nothing.

Now most of these albums were solid or better when originally released, and the material has not aged too poorly for a guy listening to it being reprinted in 2018, in 2020. The production is fairly even across those albums, so frankly a lot of the songs could have just been swapped between them and none would be the wiser. "We Still Drink the Old Ways" is present, my favorite Tankard tune of the 21st century, so at least someone had some common sense. Surprisingly, there are a lot of 'clumps' taken from the albums, like two tracks in a row on the original track lists that are also placed here in a row, somewhat chronologically. And most of the AFM new studio albums get 2-3 tunes, while the Best Case Scenario has four tracks, one of which is a medley...so even here the focus is on some of the same earlier material from older compilations, only the re-recordings, which as I've covered elsewhere, were completely unnecessary and lacked the charm of the originals in favor of a more streamlined studio presence with their 2000s fare (this worked well enough for Destruction but I really couldn't get into Tankard's attempt).

So what really can I say positively about this? If you've read my rants over money grubbing wastes of space like this, you know what comes next. If Hymns for the Drunk were being handed out at AAA meetings or elemental schools for free, to preach the golden gospel of Tankard, as righteous a faith as any, then I might go soft on it. But this is a product that'll set you back $15-20, entirely without any merit since any n00b interested in the Kings of Beer can just sample them from any number of sources, officially approved or not. The cover art is kinda cute maybe, or it would be as a beer coaster, but I mean unless this thing came with an actual functioning TAP attached to it, there would be no amount of gimmickry to overcome its vacuousness. There were no bonus tracks that could have been dug up from these AFM years, no rarities, that could have made this worth a piss? Why is this beloved, legendary band treated with such awful and ineffectual anthologies?

Verdict: Epic Fail [0/10]
https://www.tankard.info/

Tankard - Schwarz-weiß wie Schnee (Eagles & Tankards) EP (2017)

Tankard, football and alcohol have gone hand in hand in hand for pretty much the band's entire existence, culminated in the original  Schwarz-weiß wie Schnee EP back in 2006 through AFM records. Now that the band's enjoying its latest stint with Nuclear Blast, they've decided to go and 'update' that, gracing us with another limited edition CD and 7" EP which was presumably just as much a forgettable novelty as its predecessor. They've fattened this up with some other studio material we've already heard, a live gig, and of most interest might be another sports tribute bonus track which was available only as a video and a bonus track to the band's solid 2014 LP Vol(l)ume 14, which was coincidentally their last with AFM.

The punkier mix of the original "Schwarz-weiß wie Schnee" is reinforced with a more grandiose rendition, with audience participation and a more anthemic production. Of the two, this one feels like it's being played at you right from the stadium, and in fact that's where the video takes place, with an entire arena full of football fans cheering along...now to think, if only every person in that audience was buying Tankard records, they'd be the biggest thrash band in the world! So that is at last fun to see, that the band was allowed to perform this (possibly numerous times). Now I don't know much about Euro professional soccer, and to whether this is a really big deal, I'm a World Cup/national team guy, but it certainly looks like the band is jazzed up and sure they fucking deserve it. However, I think in terms of digesting the track, I prefer the original incarnation which sounds like it might have been lifted off an old mid-80s punk album only injected with some slightly thrashier guitars. But hey, you can compare and contrast them and choose for yourself.

Apart from these two versions of the same song, the EP is padded out with the studio title tracks to their albums A Girl Called Cerveza and One Foot in the Grave. Both good tracks, but rather useless except as random filler that I presume they wanted to expose to football fans that might like hard rock or heavy metal and haven't already heard the band until their football anthem. Their other sportsy tune, "Forza SGE", has been reproduced here from its status as a Vol(l)ume 14 bonus track, and it's another punk rock spin with shoutalong vocals and it basically just sounds like a bunch of drunken hooligans. No interesting riffs or anything to be heard. Finally, there's a live version of "(Empty) Tankard" live, another punk-charged piece that goes well enough with the other content, but it's kind of a murky, subdued live mix. So ultimately, there's not enough new or interesting here to recommend at all unless you are dead set on getting that new version of the football song, and even that isn't so great if you're not in the audience cheering before the kick-off or half-time. The original EP is nothing to write home about, but this is even less of a curiosity, a product that doesn't need to be.

Verdict: Fail [4.5/10]

https://www.tankard.info/

Kreator - For the Hordes EP (2019)

For the Hordes is another CD EP included with an issue of Legacy Magazine, which seems to have cornered the market on German thrash bands putting out exclusive audio souvenirs in the last decade. There isn't a whole lot to this one, just three live tracks, and a rarer studio cut that you can only find as a bonus track elsewhere. Even the lives aren't all that exclusive, since they're part of a more substantial release coming out in 2020, so at the best this is the sort of thing you might find while perusing and think was neat if you're into the band, but the process in putting it all together didn't demand much effort and neither should anyone but the most ardent Kreator fan put any effort into tracking it down for his or her collection.

Now the live songs do sound quite good here, plucked from dates in places as far abroad as Chile, the UK and the Masters of Rock festival in Czechia. Hellish, energetic and very clear sounding, they sound as aggressive as you want them to be, with "Hordes of Chaos" and the more melodic "Fallen Brothers" standouts, and then the legendary "Flag of Hate" finishing up the trifecta, and that one did not translate quite as well in some sections, partially because it's being broken up for crowd interface. The final track, "Earth Under the Sword", is actually really great, it was released as a bonus track on a bunch of versions of Gods of Violence, and even had a limited 7" single put out with Decibel, but in my opinion it should have probably been a main track on that album, it's energetic and has a little bit of cinematic atmosphere created through some sparse orchestration which manages to help it feel urgent and powerful without intruding on the core instruments or vocals whatsoever.

If you like collecting metal magazines, this EP is a nice little nudge in the right direction, even though all of its content will inevitably be made redundant. In that regards its very similar to the Chosen by the Grace of God of EP which also featured in this magazine, just a little lighter on the actual content. I certainly don't need it or recommend it beyond its nature as a collectible, but if you hadn't heard "Earth Under the Sword" somehow and you want quality live recordings you could do a lot worse, and at the very least it has me psyched that London Apocalypticon - Live at the Roundhouse should prove to be a potent enough live album come Valentine's Day, when you know all you want is to thrash. Partner optional.

Verdict: Indifference [5.25/10]

https://kreator-terrorzone.de/

Kreator - Violence Unleashed EP (2016)

Violence Unleashed was an EP pressed in both CD and vinyl formats which was to serve as a teaser for Kreator's great Gods of Violence album, released about a month after this one. A common practice for a lot of these larger reach, multi-decade veteran acts, although I can't tell you whether or not it's a successful one these days, since everything is just accessible online and a lot of folks have abandoned collecting physical media altogether. The Jan Meininghaus illustration is pretty basic but pretty good, tying in with the full-length, and for what it's worth you're getting nearly a half hour of content...none of which is particularly exclusive to this release, which as always, when you're looking for a hot new EP of content, a total fucking bummer.

You've got "Gods of Violence" itself leading this off, which I've already discussed elsewhere, and then the cover of Maiden's "Number of the Beast", which is pretty well done, but already available on Phantom Antichrist and the original Big Teutonic 4 split. "Wolfchild" is the one song I was not already familiar with, and it's a decent one, sort of a brisk heavy metal joint with Mille's distinct presence and a good flow to it all, erupting into the layered harmonies the band was sweet on for their last couple albums. Apparently this tune was also on the single for "Civilization Collapse", but new to me and the one thing here that doesn't feel too trite. "Iron Destiny" is another decent song, another Phantom Antichrist bonus cut, but probably unheard by many. It's a slower to mid-paced track, also with a heavy metal foundation, not terribly memorable riffs but if you're into this more glorious era of mature Kreator I can't imagine you wouldn't like it, especially the Maiden-like bridge.

Lastly, some live cuts of "Phobia" and "Violent Revolution" which are pretty useless to me since I've got the version of Gods of Violence which has the bonus live CD/DVD that includes them and more. Honestly the version of "Phobia" is a little silly, Mille sounds like he's losing his voice for part of it. But really, these are unnecessary editions to a fairly lame release that doesn't have much reason to exist other than as a promotional tool. Had Kreator maybe included an alternate version of "Gods of Violence", 3-4 unreleased studio tracks and then maybe "Wolfchild" for good measure, this might be a thing of beauty, but as it stands I have no reason whatsoever to revisit it beyond just that one song, and it's a hollow product that nobody's ever going to revere like they used to when bands put out EPs back in the earlier metal decades, where they were pretty important releases that built up their own cult followings and were often full of great original material.

Verdict: Fail [4/10]

https://kreator-terrorzone.de/

Destruction/Kreator/Sodom/Tankard - The Big Teutonic 4 - Part II EP (2015)

The original Big Teutonic 4 split was a fairly fun idea, so why not tap that well another time? That was Nuclear Blast's thinking as they rounded up the usual suspects for another go at some rousing NWOBHM covers. This time, each of the four thrash bands is taking on a different English forerunner, with only one of those bands (Maiden) being redundant with the original split. Raven, Saxon and Tank are all getting a turn to have some of their material in the spotlight. And once again, much of the material here has also been published elsewhere, so the value you're going to get out of it is pretty limited if you're not a long-term follower/collector of the German bands. As cool as it was to hear the slightly lesser known bands like Raven and Tank done justice, I was sadly less into this split than its predecessor.

Kind of like Sodom's cover on the earlier split, Kreator's version of Raven's "Lambs to the Slaughter" is one I've already been familiar with forever, since it came out on the Out of the Dark...Into the Light EP back in the 80s, and many represses of that with the Terrible Certainty album since. Sodom's contribution of Tank's "Don't Walk Away" is also an oldie that has been around since the days of the Agent Orange. Both are solid versions but they don't really change up the formula all that much, maybe in Mille's case but even he is trying to emulate some of the Raven screams with mixed success. I feel that Destruction's rendition of "Princess of the Night" is more of the transformation you want to hear when a thrash act is covering some trad metal, but it also comes off a little goofy with all the vocals and backing vocals going over it, cluttered where the original is just so elegant, perfectly written and executed. Bringing up the rear yet again, Tankard is the one band doing something exclusive here, with yet another Maiden cover, this one a somewhat exciting romp on their eponymous "Iron Maiden".

Part II sort of falters with the first two tracks being pretty obvious covers that aren't news to anyone, and Destruction's is once again a bonus track from various versions of Spiritual Genocide. Since these three were all pretty saturated in exposure and easy to acquire, I think this is less of a value than the first time around, which was already a debatable value. So once again, hardcore Tankard fans will benefit the most from having it. What's the most disappointing though is that the label and bands could have taken this idea and done something really special with it, like new original material...an 8 or 12 track 4-way Teutonic split with 2-3 new original cuts from each band would sell like hotcakes. But this just seems like a lazier followup to something that already generated a little cash flow and it shows in both the selection and the product.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

https://www.destruction.de/
https://kreator-terrorzone.de/
http://sodomized.info/
https://www.tankard.info/

Destruction/Kreator/Sodom/Tankard - The Big Teutonic 4 EP (2012)

Now here's an example of a split release between numerous thrash metal luminaries which, at least on the surface level, seems rather an interesting one. I agree completely with the designation of these four bands as 'The Big Teutonic 4', happy that Tankard was at last being counted among them (I'd been doing so since the 90s when it was clear they were persisting where others faltered). This was yet another CD being issued exclusively through the Legacy magazine out of Germany, but Nuclear Blast also released a version of it some months later, so...not so much. What's even more curious, is that this doesn't feature original songs, but rather covers of two titanic English bands in Iron Maiden and Motörhead, with two German bands taking on each of them. Unfortunately, most of these are NOT exclusive to this split, but taken from various other singles, past albums, or previously issued bonus tracks, by the respective artists.

The most obvious of these is going to be Sodom's handling of "Iron Fist", which we'd already heard as far back as Persecution Mania and even live on Mortal Way of Live. It's a classic, in the hands of either its originator or Tom Angelripper, and a natural cover from a band that draws so much of its own style DIRECTLY from those NWOBHM road-dogs, however at the same it was the inclusion I was least interested in, having heard it many times before. However, Destruction's cover of "The Hammer", which was only included with the Japanese version of Spiritual Genocide (that I had not heard), is quite nasty, Schmier plastering his version of the vocals all over the punk-fueled speed metal massacre. It's also a little messy in the right ways, not as tight as the original content those Germans were putting out, but that's fine in the context of this particular cover. Another of my favorites here is Kreator's "Number of the Beast", not the first time they've taken on Iron Maiden, but even though the music plays pretty close to the original, it sounds great with Mille's harsher vocals, and I loved the lead sequence. This one is also located on the later Violence Unleashed EP or the Phantom Antichrist single if you're trying to track it down elsewhere.

The thrashier version of "The Prisoner" that Tankard includes is also a good one, filthier guitar tone and filthier vocals via Gerre, but they still touch on some points of atmosphere that you wouldn't expect from the German drunkaholics. And as far as I know, this is the one cover that is only available on this particular split, at least for now, so if you're a Tankard collector, you've got the most motivation to snap this up. Now, if ALL of these songs were exclusives, then I'd say this was a CD or vinyl that almost anyone would want...the songs are all good, even if Sodom's contribution is a bit too redundant. And to be fair, many fans might not own most of the tunes elsewhere. It's a fun concept to round up these thrashers, legends themselves, and then watch as they don't toot their own horns, but cover even mightier legends of British heavy metal. If you can track one down, it's pretty sweet to have on your wall, even if the content isn't all that valuable. Not a necessary purchase, but neat if you've never run across these covers before. And to think, Nuke Blast and these same four bands would be doing it again in just a couple years...

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://www.destruction.de/
https://kreator-terrorzone.de/
http://sodomized.info/
https://www.tankard.info/

Destruction/Tankard EP (2014)

The Pitch: Dude, two of your favorite German thrash bands have decided to release a split 7" together. It's totally limited, under a thousand copies, available in three vinyl colors and with some pretty cool cover art for each side that...looks a little much like cover art that both bands have released before, but try not to let that get in the way!

The Response: How many tracks? Are they exclusive? Is this one of those deals where each band is covering the other? Are they collaborations?

The Pitch: Well the Tankard track is also being released today on a full-length album called R.I.B., you know like Reign in Blood only its Reign in Beer! Surprised they never did that before. But the Destruction song, "Wildstyle/Immortality" is unique to this 7" as far as I know!

The Response: Well, that's somewhat less exciting, but let's check out this Destruction track. Hey, it's not so bad...sounds like a bunch of riffs that could have been patched together from anything they've put out from 2000-2014, but it's got that vicious energy they excel at, gnarly Schmier vocals, and a decent breakdown with lead guitar accompanying it. Nothing to scoff at.

The Pitch: I am so happy to hear you say that. So you want a copy? How about one of each color? Oh wait, you're not a Bronze Status Customer. I can only offer you the Red and White...

The Response: Nah, I'll just buy the Tankard album instead, and hope Destruction drops this on another album as a bonus track somewhere down the road. Thanks for nearly nothin'.

Verdict: Skimpy Fail [2/10]

https://www.destruction.de/
https://www.tankard.info/