Protector - Excessive Outburst of Depravity (2022)

By title, Excessive Outburst of Depravity might give you an impression that this is somehow going to be a leveling up of filth and aggression in Protector's reunion phase, but in fact it's a very good, controlled record that offers a little bit of a course correction from the ailing (but still decent) Summon the Hordes. The style hasn't moved an inch, but I thought the production here felt smoother and better captured all the vocals and instruments more than its predecessor, at the cost of not feeling quite so retrospective. Granted, the material here is still blazing thrash of an 80s Sodom variety, like a mix of Agent Orange and Better Off Dead, two of my faves from that band, but the balance and QOL improvements place it more within the 21st century spectrum. You won't miss out the nostalgic vibes this time around, but it takes the thrust and professionalism of Cursed and Coronated to another level, and it's my favorite of this 'MK II' era.

Bunch of tunes here feel like the boys are ammoed up, slinging on their ballistic helmets and headed for the battlefield, like "Open Skies and Endless Seas" with its well-paced intro, "Thirty Years of Perdition" with the same sort of setup but amazing verse riffs, or "Perpetual Blood Oath" which feels like a Bolt Thrower intro colliding into a vintage Destruction section. The rhythm section is incredibly tight, the leads are uniformly good without overindulging, and Martin Missy's vocals feel more brutal and full and charismatic than they were on the 2019 effort. You're still not getting anything highly unique here, this is all directly from the lexicon of German thrash with some seasonings of US flavor, but it's executed with skill, variation, and most importantly, songs that are memorable enough that you'll probably want to play them a few times in succession, which is really the hallmark of quality for most records. I'm not talking super sticky, infectious riffs, but more like a 'comfort food' for those who have been listening to this style for the last 3+ decades.

Even though this album came in the same three-year patterns and those leading up to it, it feels like all the interim time since Summon the Hordes had been better spent composing stronger material, and it never really lapses once throughout its 47+ minutes of existence. There's no goofy tail-end track for filler, "Morse Mania" here is a rager and commands the same respect as opener "Last Stand Hill". The production is from Robert Pehrsson (of Death Breath no less), the mix from Patrick Engel of a dozen German bands, and you can tell they both put a lot of love into making this sound like the de facto Protector album of the new century. This one ranks up there with A Shedding of Skin, The Heritage for me, and it's actually my favorite with Martin Missy's vocals, a blasphemous opinion perhaps, but here we are. Timeless and totally reliable Teutonic thrash from one of the first bands anyone should check out after they've opened the 'starter pack' and a few other brilliant outliers from the 80s era.

Verdict: Win [8.25/10] (All swords on the sacred stone)

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