Dave's Underground Laboratory: February 13, 2012

Part of the whole “Satanic Hispanic” movement of retro-thrash going on in Los Angeles and in the city’s environs, Witchaven plays a stripped down, dirty form of old school thrash metal. Forget the Bay Area, though; Witchaven seem to be drawing from the playbook of Teutonic warriors such as Kreator and Destruction, circa 1984.

A frenetic pace, plenty of fast riffs, and nearly rasped, high pitched vocals are the norm on Terrorstorm, Witchaven’s self released debut full-length, an album that is being given a wider digital and physical release, courtesy of Metalhit.com (a recurring theme for this week’s column, by the way).

All of it is done suitably well enough with catchy songs playing like a throwback to yesteryear, a rather rough production that is in marked contrast to a lot of the slicker retro-thrash bands’ releases these day, and a definite lack of polish that makes one suspect that Venom and Motörhead lurk somewhere within the pedigree of Witchaven.

Nothing original, to be sure, but Terrorstorm is a good, rough, old school thrash album, nothing more, nothing less. I’m also quite sure that Witchaven go over like gangbusters in a live setting.

Dave’s Grade: B+

Take everything you that just read in my review of Witchaven above, and replace the word “Witchaven” with “Macabra,” and you sort of have the gist of it with regards to Blood- Nurtured Nature (another digital release from Metalhit.com). OK, that’s not really accurate, or fair, as Macabra are one, from Virginia (I think) given that one of the Riddick brothers with connections to Metalhit.com is a member of the band, and two, Macabra are much closer to old school death metal than thrash metal.

Blood-Nurtured Nature is a pretty good album of stripped down, OSDM with a good deal of crunch and, admittedly, a bit more polish than the release from Witchaven profiled above. However, the frenetic pace, the raw approach, and the homage to the old school are there in spades on Blood-Nurtured Nature, an album with some pretty good songwriting and plenty of riffs that are sort of reminiscent of the most recent album from Funerus.

Like Witchaven, Macabra are not exactly reinventing the wheel, but, at a price of about $5 a pop from Metalhit.com, you really can’t go wrong as you wait for more releases from Ibex Moon Records.

Dave’s Grade: B+

Do you detect a recurring theme here? Metalhit.com is rapidly cornering the market on old school thrash and death metal; well, at least, in this week’s column. After Witchaven and Macabra, next on the list is Mexico’s Strikemaster, yet another band playing a stripped down, raw form, etc., etc. of thrash metal that, like Witchaven, takes cues from the old school German bands more than anything else. A frenetic pace, lots of riffs, lots of speed, and shouted vocals with a bit of a crossover feel are de rigueur with Strikemaster.

However, the production is a bit clearer with Strikemaster than with Witchaven, and the music has a bit of a more powerful feel. That said, though, the songwriting suffers a bit from a “been there, done that” sort of vibe, as Strikemaster basically start to repeat themselves after a few songs.

Even so, the musicianship is fairly tight, simplistic approach notwithstanding, and, like each of the releases profiled above, I find myself enjoying Vicious Nightmare. If your appreciation of the old school coincides with mine, you probably will, too.

Dave’s Grade: B

The last album out of the Metalhit.com batch is the debut full-length from New Jersey’s Immolith. They are a rather typical raw black metal outfit with all of the genre’s aesthetics hit with gusto and enthusiasm. Corsepaint? Check. Fast blasts and tremolo picking? Check? Screeched vocals? Check. A fuzzy production? Check. In short, Immolith are treading well worn ground, to say the least.

However, Immolith do tread that ground rather well with decent songs and musicianship. You’re not exactly going to be blown away by Storm Dragon, but if by the numbers black metal is your bread and butter (as it obviously is with Immolith), then you’ve got nothing to lose; nothing, that is, except $5.

Dave’s Grade: B-

Nebraska’s Xenomorph were a flash in the pan, straddle the line between thrash and death metal band that released one album in the early 1990s, and then promptly disappeared without a trace. Not to worry! The good folks at Dark Descent Records periodically take it upon themselves to rediscover old school releases that you probably missed the first time around, package a reissue with a few goodies, and then release the whole kit and kaboodle upon an unsuspecting public.

Dark Horse Comics Alien graphic novel cover art rip off notwithstanding (it’s amazing how much of this crap is stored in my head somewhere), Xenomorph play a rather dirty form of raw death metal that is probably closer to bands such as Texas’ Devastation than the whole Florida scene that was exploding at the time.

A definite raw sound, a mid-paced tempo, and a thick production is rather typical of Xenomorph, a band that strikes me as having raw potential more than anything else on this album. However, that potential is definitely not very well realized on Empyreal Regimes, as the songwriting peters out a bit after a few songs. To be frank, there’s a reason why more bands than not completely disappear.

That said, though, there are a few good moments scattered here and there on Empyreal Regimes, and those of you still with me on this one may want to note that Dark Descent Records tosses in an old demo from Xenomorph; albeit, in very rough form.

Dave’s Grade: C+

Venom, Slayer, and… Oz?! So said the flyer advertising a soon to be realized concert at the old Aragon Ballroom in Chicago in 1984! My friends and I were absolutely ecstatic at the prospect of finally seeing Venom and Slayer, but who the Hell were Oz?! Well, some investigations into a few back issues of Kerrang! and Metal Forces somewhat dispelled the mystery, as Oz were a Finnish band that had just released their debut full-length album Fire In The Brain about a year earlier.

We got a look at the cover art in various advertisements; a cover depicting a spike clad arm cradling a flaming skull to go along with a suitable color scheme of red and black. Couldn’t be all that bad, right? Well, as I recall, Oz dropped off the bill before it ever happened, only to be replaced by Exodus and the rest is, as they say, history. I promptly forgot all about Oz, who would go on to eke out a few albums before calling it a day.

Little would I guess that Oz would reappear a full 28 years later with Burning Leather, their first album in 20 years. Like so many others from yesteryear, Oz have decided to give it another go as old hands such as me continue to look back on the days of our youth with fond remembrance.

Based on Burning Leather, though, Oz would’ve been out of place on that long lost bill, anyway, as Oz are firmly rooted in the traditional heavy metal sound that flirts with what would’ve been called pop metal back in the day. Lots of NWOBHM-inspired riffs, tempos, song structures, guitar solos, and melodic vocals speak volumes of where Oz are coming from on Burning Leather, a fix up album of sorts that contains a number of re-recorded tracks, some that date all the way back to Fire In The Brain.

In short, Oz probably fall somewhere in between early Iron Maiden and Saxon to go along with Scorpions-esque accessibility. The songs are all decent representations of the genre and era, but Oz’s best asset is definitely the soaring vocals Ape De Martini, a talent that never realized his full potential.

If you yearn for the days of traditional heavy metal with both feet firmly planted in the early 1980s; or, if, like me, you had heard of Oz way back when but never actually heard the band, now’s your chance.

Dave’s Grade: B