Happy new year, friends. Oh, who are we kidding? It’s a shitty year already. Fuck everything. Here’s hoping you and yours aren’t burning, freezing or still trying to put the pieces together from one of 2024’s disasters. Let’s see what music has been soothing the anxiety of your Last Rites pals as the world burns and the power of the common people evaporates.
We are frighteningly low on playlist commonality this time, with only two albums appearing more than once, resulting in a tie for album of the month. Our first co-champion is Swedish traditional / power metal band Heavy Load with its 1982 album Death or Glory. Sadly the group’s appearance here is likely due to the recent death of the band’s co-founder, guitarist and vocalist, Ragne Wahlquist. I must admit a complete unfamiliarity with Heavy Load’s work, but as the group is considered to be Sweden’s first heavy metal band, I’ve certainly enjoyed the fruits the rich heavy metal legacy Heavy Load seeded in Sweden. Finally, our second winner this month is Bay-area thrash outfit Heathen, with it’s late-era thrash classic Victims of Deception. If that isn’t a timeless title, I don’t know what is.
Alright, it’s group discussion time. In honor of Heathen’s victory this month, share with us in the comments your favorite thrash album by an American act, not including the big four or Exodus and Testament. Myself, I’ll go with Overkill’s The Years of Decay. This album was Bobby Gustafson’s last with the band, and he went out with a bang. The Years is full of typical catchy, anthemic Overkill thrash tunes, but the creeping doom of “Playing with Spiders / Skullkrusher” really seals the deal for me.
That’s all for this month, folks. Have a listen to the staff-curated Spotify playlist below, and share your own playlist in the comments. Until next month, stay safe, and stay hopeful; somebody has to.
- Zach Duvall
ZZ Top – Eliminator
The Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East
Katharsis – VVorldVVithoutEnd
Forbidden – Forbidden Evil
Opeth – The Last Will and Testament
Deadguy – Fixation on a Co-Worker - Andrew Edumnds
Coroner – No More Color
Heathen – Victims Of Deception
Robin Trower – Bridge Of Sighs
Saxon – Strong Arm Of The Law
Riistetyt – Skitsofrenia
Queen – The Game - Captain
Revenant – Prophecies of a Dying World
Revenant – The Burning Ground
Ripping Corpse – Dreaming with the Dead
Epidemic – Decameron
Num Skull – Ritually Abused
Necrodeath – Into the Macabre - Danhammer Obstkrieg
Christian Mistress – Possession
Plastikman – Musik
Tony Williams – Life Time
Heavy Load – Death or Glory
Uriah Heep – Demons & Wizards
Jon Hopkins – Music for Psychedelic Therapy - Lin Manuel de Guerra
Plastic Estate – Code D’amour
Rush – Vapor Trails (Remixed)
Phrenelith – Ashen Womb
Donaly Byrd – Ethiopian Knights
Heavy Load – Death or Glory
War Dogs – Only the Stars are Left - Isaac Hams
Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest
Amon Amarth – Versus the World
John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
Roc Marciano & The Alchemist – The Elephant Man’s Bones
Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
Afterbirth – In But Not Of - Lone Watie
Gorguts – Obscura
Spite Extreme Wing – Vltra
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Ragged Glory
Zeni Geva – Freedom Bondage
Nubya Garcia – Odyssey
McCoy Tyner – Nights of Ballads & Blues - Blizzard of Jozzsh
Rainbow – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow
Rainbow – Rising
Exodus – Fabulous Disaster
Exodus – Pleasures of the Flesh
The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
Nine Inch Nails – Pretty Hate Machine - Ryan Tysinger
Gospel of the Horns – A Call to Arms
Black Witchery – Desecration of the Holy Kingdom
Moonblood – Winter Falls Over the Land
Order from Chaos – Stillbirth Machine
Impaled Nazarene – Ugra-Karma
Sever – At Midnight, By Torchlight - Jeremy Morse
Edge of Sanity – The Spectral Sorrows
Edge of Sanity – Crimson
Black Sabbath – Sabotage
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Heathen – Victims of Deception
Thanatos – Four Decades of Death
hmmmm….most fav USA thrash album? I would have to go with Morbid Saint “Spectrum of Death” or Vio-lence “Eternal Nightmare”. I also love that Heathen record and a lot of other American acts. Could discuss all day!
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
Sidewinder – Talons
Pyrrhon – Exhaust
Merycful Fate – Don’t Break the Oath
Less Than Jake – Hello Rockview
Mother of Graves – The Periapt of Absence
Favorite Thrash album not by the Big 4(+2)? Easy, Corrosion of Conformity – Blind. Still one of my all-time fave albums, maybe not the ‘purest’ thrash, but enough so that it qualifies in my eyes. Any number of Overkill releases probably slot in as second place, as well.
Mono Peninsula – Metro/Pol
Sólstafir – Hin Helga kvöl
Zola Jesus – Arkhon
Diskord – Degenerations
Mork – Syv
Luzifer – Iron Shackles
OMG Death Angel – Time Does Not Heal!!! <3
Oh yeah, Time Does Not Heal is a great one! Good choice 🙂
Woohoo!
And it’s also “Dark” Angel, lol.
That’s what happens when old people post in a hurry.
Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
The Ocean – Fluxion
Alaric – End of Mirrors
Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Murder Ballads
As for American Thrash, if we are talking pure thrash then (outside the big 6), Power Trip – Nightmare Logic is as good as any. Though personally I’m a big fan of Ministry’s Houses of the Mole even if it’s as much industrial metal as it is thrash.
I love The Years of Decay, and consider it not only one of the all-time great thrash records, but also one of the great metal records, period. Having said that, when asked about my favorite US thrash bands/albums that have largely flown under the radar, I can never resist shouting Holy Terror’s Mind Wars from the mountaintops. I love that band and album so much, I can’t succinctly put it all in to words. From the amazing lyrics, delivered in a one-of-a-kind, masterful vocal performance by the incomparable Keith Deen (RIP), to the unorthodox, ingenious riffs and song structures played by four musicians at the peak of their powers. The leads are molten and melodic, the rhythms legendarily tight. The fact that this band couldn’t hold it together to complete a follow-up to Mind Wars, and that main songwriter/guitarist/ metal god, Kurt Colfelt, has been playing bass(!!!) in punk bands up in the Pacific Northwest for the past 30+ years, is more than a little heartbreaking to me, but so it goes. At least we have Terror & Submission and Mind Wars, two of the greatest metal albums ever fucking made. They seriously never stop revealing new treasures, like all the best music.
Holy Terror is great. That’s a good choice. Both albums are classics. I think I prefer “Mind Wars” just because it has that Christian resistance song on it and it’s fun to scream the chorus (if you could call it that lol)! 🙂
Right on. I concur, obviously!