Meshuggah - "None" [1994]

Artist: Meshuggah

Title: None

Genre: Progressive Metal, Technical Thrash Metal

Country: Sweden
Year: 1994

Track List:

1. Humiliative
2. Sickening
3. Ritual
4. Gods of Rapture
5. Aztec Two-Step (bonus)

We all know Meshuggah. They now have the dubious honor of being the seminal band for the whole djent (or "math metal") genre, but before they've gone full 000, they recorded one more or less conventional thrash metal albums and a couple of very avant-garde albums that were described as "industrial/groove thrash fusion-influenced metal" or something like that. In particular, "Chaosphere" is frequently cited as one of the heaviest albums ever recorded (which is arguable) with some of the most "mechanical" riffs ever played (which is definitely accurate).

Are they a technical band? Yes, undoubtedly. Do they play good music? Various people have different opinions, and Meshuggah's stuff (especially their late 90's recordings) definitely isn't for everyone. I personally don't listen to them too often but can acknowledge their talent (same with Voivod and some other "technical" metal bands). Actually, my best friend during my university years was a huge fan of Meshuggah, but he generally liked everything that's "technical" and "avant-garde", be it metal or prog-rock/zeuhl.

Now let's get to the point. My favourite Meshuggah release is this often overlooked 1994 EP, which is generally considered "transitional" between their early thrash style and their "true" dissonant and polymetric math metal style. Compared to the subsequent full-length "Destroy Erase Improve", it's more accessible to the average listener, and contains a very atypical song for Meshuggah: "Ritual". Honestly it's their favourite song of mine, exactly because it's quite different from the rest: it has a trippy/psychedelic feel to it, it's melodic and has some acousic parts, and Jens Kidman is actually singing instead of his usual shouting:

No Return - "Machinery" [2002]

Artist: No Return

Title: Machinery

Genre: Industrial Death/Thrash Metal

Country: France
Year: 2002

Track List:

1. Machinery
2. The Recycler
3. Violator
4. Synthetic
5. Disillusion
6. Virus
7. Resurrection
8. Disease
9. Dynamo
10. The Last Act
11. Biomechanoid
12. Secret Face (Death cover)

No Return are widely regarded one of the biggest French trash metal acts, started as early as in 1984 under the name Evil Power before changing it in 1989. Honestly I'm not familiar with their early works at all (and the whole 80s French metal scene is still mostly a terra incognita for me), but this album was a pretty interesting find. Its sound has been described as a mix of Kreator, (old) Fear Factory, and melodic death metal of the Swedish school, with a lot of electronic music influences. While I can't call "Machinery" a masterpiece, as it's definitely not as innovative as the early works of Fear Factory, Nocturnus, or Oxiplegatz (whom No Return also were compared to), yet it's still very decent and rather overlooked industrial death/thrash metal release with a pronounced futuristic theme.

Sasamaso

Did you know that there is a metal scene on Madagascar? In fact, Madagascar, along with Botswana, are among the very few African countries with more or less sizable metal scene, and the history of Malagasy metal can be traced to the late 80s.

Sasamaso isn't a new band as well, being formed in 2002 as the first female-fronted metal band in Madagascar (and probably one of the first in Africa), yet they have next to no physical releases apart from one extremely obscure demo in 2004. Fortunately they now have a Soundcloud page where you can check out some of their tracks. For the most part, their music is based in thrash metal, but I'd say their sound is quite unique and doesn't fit into any particular genre, especially when it comes to tracks like this:


Actually, I can hear a lot of similarities with metal from Malaysia and Indonesia, which is not surprising considering that the first settlers of Madagascar came from that general area and still keep their Austronesian language that's completely unrelated to any of the languages in mainland Africa. Likewise, the metal scene in Indonesia is well developed in comparison to the rest of Asia excluding Japan, much like the Malagasy metal scene in relation to the rest of Africa.

And here's one more track, with a bit more "traditional" metal sound. The quality of recording is far from perfect, but it's totally expected from such an obscure band:

Doom (JPN) - "Complicated Mind" [1988]

Artist: Doom

Title: Complicated Mind

Genre: Technical Thrash Metal

Country: Japan

Release date: 1988

Track List:

1. Complicated Mind
2. Fall, Rise and...
3. The Boys Dog
4. Bright Light
5. Slave of Heaven
6. Kingdom of Silkroad
7. Can't Break My... Without You
8. Painted Face
9. Poor Boy Condition
10. Nervous Break Down

The Japanese band Doom might be not as known as the other pioneers of avant-garde thrash metal like Voivod, Mekong Delta, Toxik or Watchtower, but they're as crazy as only a Japanese band could be. Like in case with many other obscure 80's metal albums I've posted here before, I discovered "Complicated Mind" via the Vibrations of Doom collection of classic albums, and was completely amazed by it. Sure it's not the music I'd want to listen to on a daily basis (just like in case with Voivod), but as an example of a very interesting release from a band who decided to break the rules of a rather hidebound genre, it shouldn't be missed.

Later on, they have moved father away from thrash, especially on their 1992 release "Illegal Soul" which is a kind of weird indusrial/noise rock, but their trademarks always remained the same: dissonant chords and solos, weird time signatures, and repetitive lyrics in clumsy English. And yes, I agree with those reviewes a that one of the best assets of Doom is the guy on fretless bass. Their albums are surprisingly hard to find on the net, but at least the links on dark-world.ru are working.

Voivod - "War & Pain" [1984]

Artist: Voivod

Title: War and Pain

Genre: Thrash Metal

Country: Canada (Quebec)

Release date: 1984

Track List:

1. Voivod
2. Warriors of Ice
3. Suck Your Bone
4. Iron Gang
5. War and Pain
6. Blower
7. Live for Violence
8. Black City
9. Nuclear War

Since Voivod were mentioned in my previous entry, I decided to post their debut full-length release from the era when their sound wasn't too "progressive" yet. This album is raw thrash metal with a healthy dose of punk, apparently inspired by bands like Venom and Warfare. I'm pretty sure it already was reviewed numerous times, so I have to say only one thing: while I normally don't listen to this kind of music too much, the aesthetics on this album are 10 out of 10. If you're looking for a thrash metal album with post-apocalyptic/post-nuclear theme, this one would be exactly what you're looking for (along with "Pray For War" by Virus).

What else is interesting about this album? The lyrics. They look like being written by someone who had even worse proficiency in English than me, which resulted in quite a few truly brilliant lines like "Go shit! I'm not a fish we're gonna burn your home". At times, it feels like they just wanted to write down all the scary words they know, but the result turned out to be surprisingly impressive:

"Riding, crashing, charging run to the wrong side
In the night bastard, savage, prowler
Whip the engine for more power fast winds, highway, hell song
Feel the fog in the black storm
Darkness, black walls, shadows can't see the light on the road
Alone in a haunted concrete foundation
Abandoned and possessed in a ghostly mansion
Desert, ghost town, bare lands dark street create a fear
Closed lamps, curfews dead leaves
The black cat awaits the witch
Don't stay in black city your soul will catch the spell"

Or this one, which probably was supposed to be sci-fi themed (like many other Voivod songs written later):

"Learning the rules of the games with atrocity
Living in a prehistoric weather with intensity
Armed cold weapons in hand charged mangled corpse on the land
The bestial contortions on the prey makes me lust to kill 'em all everyday
Curdled by frost too young to rust fight be wild
Warriors of ice the hell fighters
Warriors of ice"

That's what is remarkable about this album - back them, Voivod were absolute beginners when it comes to writing both music and lyrics, but the end result turned out to be surprisingly better than could be expected. On their later releases, they continued to break the rules of songwriting (this time intentionally), thus becoming one of most unorthodox metal bands of their time.

Tyrant's Reign - "Year of the Tyrants" [1987]

Artist: Tyrant's Reign

Title: Year of the Tyrants

Genre: Thrash/Speed Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 1987

Track List:

1. Tyrant's Reign
2. Jack the Ripper
3. Untamed
4. Deadly Eyes
5. Reign of Terror
6. Fadeaway

There were many obscure American thrash metal bands during the second half of 1980s, but, in my opinion, very few of them are worth attention. This one, however, is an exception. Like many other early thrash metal bands, Tyrant's Reign never received much publicity, and they had to disband in the early 1990s when thrash metal fell out of style, after releasing only a couple of demos and one EP.

This EP, however, is one of the best thrash metal releases I've heard, even despite its poor quality of production. Like in case with many other obscure gems from that era, I discovered it via the Vibrations of Doom classic metal collection. My personal favourite is the opening track, which is extremely catchy (and I love this vocal style), yet the rest of the release is pretty good too. First two songs from it also appeared on the 2004 compilation of Tyrant's Reign early tracks re-recorded in much better quality - yet I think the re-recording killed quite a lot of charm that was present on the original release.

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Pokerface - "Divide & Rule" [2015]

Artist: Pokerface

Title: Divide & Rule

Genre: Thrash Metal

Country: Russia

Release date: 2015

Track List:

1. All Is Lie
2. Kingdom of Hate
3. The Chessboard Killer
4. Existence
5. Into the Inferno
6. Human Control
7. Killed by Me
8. Shut Up!
9. Divide and Rule
10. Age of Terrorism

Pokerface might be not the best choice of a name for a metal band, but there's plethora of much worse names in metal scene (for just one example, I stumbled upon a band named Eccentric Toilet just an hour ago). What's matter is the music they're playing, and it's fairly up to the standards of thrash metal, especially of the German old school (Sodom, Destruction, Kreator, etc.) The band has a female vocalist, but it isn't easy to guess by just listening to the album. They're also a pretty active live band, and they've visited my city as well, but I wasn't familiar with their music back then.

Фронт - "Металлизация XXV" [2012]

Artist: Фронт

Title: Металлизация XXV

Genre: Industrial Thrash Metal

Country: Russia

Release date: 2012

Track List:

1. Мы победим!
2. Железный кулак
3. Готовность №1
4. Мрачные стены
5. Колыбельная
6. Ультиматум
7. Решётка
8. Металлизация

Фронт/Front were one of the first thrash metal bands in the USSR, and almost certainly the first to record a full-length thrash metal album there ("Металлизация '1987"). This is a re-recorded version of that historical album, released 25 years after. You may notice that, while still being thrash metal in its core, this album sounds quite "Rammstein-esque". That's because the band became seriously influenced by then-nascent Neue Deutsche Haerte movement during the mid-90s (probably one of the first to do that in Russia as well, in addition to being the pioneers of USSR thrash metal). The original 1987 version of the album can be found here.

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Depressive Age - "Electric Scum" [1996]

Artist: Depressive Age

Title: Electric Scum

Genre: Technical Thrash Metal

Country: Germany
Year: 1996

Track List:

1. Electric Scum
2. Cairo Crabat
3. Remember
4. Teenage Temples
5. Small Town Boy (Bronski Beat cover)
6. Featherflute
7. Toyland Hills
8. Companero Song
9. New Machine Wisdom
10. Polar Athletic Son
11. Weird Boy
12. Sports Yells

Depressive Age started in 1988 in Berlin under the name "Blackout". Since the release of their 3rd full-length album ("Symbols for the Blue Times") in 1994, their sound became more experimental and "industrial-esque", moving farther away from the standard 80's thrash metal sound. It's most evident on "Electric Scum", which features science fiction-influenced progressive rock/metal with industrial elements and the thrash metal "nucleus" (if I may say so). Some of the tracks on "Electric Scum" are really catchy, for example "Remember" or "Cairo Crabat". Despite that, Depressive Age (later just D-Age) never became a well-known band and cease their musical activities around 2001. Anyway, their legacy (especially later stuff like "Electric Scum") definitely doesn't deserve to be forgotten.

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Dresden - "Too Many Skeletons" [1986]

Artist: Dresden

Title: Too Many Skeletons

Genre: Thrash Metal

Country: USA

Release date: 1986

Track List:

1. Too Many Skeletons
2. In Fear Of God
3. Life On The Edge
4. Black Riders
5. Sounds Of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel cover)
6. Firestorm
7. Starvation
8. It's Your Funeral
9. Open Your Eyes
10. Dirge

Gloomy thrash metal with some punk influences, side project of the members of Lost Generation. This album has left a strong impression on me ~10 years ago, when I discovered it on the Vibrations of Doom site (the only place where I could find the audio files of all these rare 80's metal albums back then). After 10 years of listening to a lot of all kinds of metal it doesn't seem to be as impressive anymore, but it's still one of my favourite 80's thrash metal albums. I also think the album cover adequately reflects the atmosphere that the music creates.

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P.S. Speaking of 80's thrash metal legends - rest in peace Jeff Hanneman, even though I never was a big fan of your band, you were a classic, and Slayer's "Reign in Blood" (1986) is undoubtely one of the best metal albums ever made.