Vendetta - Black as Coal (2023)

Vendetta's earlier 80s material had a lot of personality to it, and Brain Damage stands as one of my favorites in that second or third tier of German thrash metal, a record with some tongue-in-cheek elements that felt like a more tightly controlled, dynamic alternative to Tankard. But since the group's 2002 reunion, I haven't been able to connect with much of what they put out. The first of those albums, Hate, was the best of the three before this one, but it's been dodderingly average thrash metal which lags way behind the renewed efforts and energy of juggernauts like Kreator, Sodom and Destruction. Black and Coal makes an honest attempt to bridge the band back to its glory days, and it certainly does sound like a seasoned, confident group which knows its business, but this one just never quite goes the distance that it needs.

Let me be clear, the musicianship is totally adequate, with some thundering drum-work, a reasonable bevy of rhythm guitars with a nice chunky modern tone that can also convey the melody or leads, and vocals that fit the Vendetta style, though this is the same front-man they'd had since reuniting, and not quite as charismatic as the earlier albums when the English was probably a little more challenging. But to be fair, you could convince me this was the other guys just a bit older if I wasn't paying attention to my notes. So Black as Coal has almost the whole package going for it, except for good songs...it has all the finish and features of your contemporary thrashing, produced to current standards of its peers, and understands how to implement some degree of dynamic range, but very, very few of the guitar riffs here or chorus parts remain in the memory even momentarily after you hear them. You'll hear some nods to their classic material, only a bit more iron-clad due to the modern tone, but they never surpass or even come close to the quirkiness of Brain Damage.

Plenty of effort, and it doesn't quite become generic to the level of something like an AI-generated band (they're starting to pop up out there), but it's hard to think you could throw this many riffs at a wall and not have at least a few more of them stick. "For Dear Life" with its choppy verse rhythms and cleaner vocals is probably the most unique feeling, but still zigs when it should have zagged and doesn't end up delivering more than a moment's curiosity. It's strange, because if you'd never heard this genre before, and queued up Black as Coal, it would seem an exemplar of thrash aesthetics, but it simply lacks the nuance of quality songwriting or standout leads, it's not nasty or aggressive enough to skirt by on extremity alone, and even the cover is bland as fuck. File this one along albums like The 5th or Feed the Extermination as middling-if-proficient German thrash that doesn't do its band's legacy much justice.

Verdict: Indifference [5.5/10]

http://www.vendetta-band.de/