Liste der Bands Thrash Metal Violated (NOR) Only Death Awaits

Why does Norway have so many good metal bands? It must have something to do with their long and harsh winters. When people spend most of their free time indoors and occupy themselves with hobbies like playing musical instruments. This Norwegian thrash metal band lashes out with an impressive debut album. Only Death Awaits is 8 songs and almost 30 minutes of old school thrash. It sounds similar to Death Angel, with the rawness of Dismember, and also displays some technical guitar riffs, that sound almost as good as those of Melechesh.

The opening track, Out Of Focus, thrashes relentlessly. It has a very choppy rhythm, mingled with some melodic interludes. It's a real headbanger. There is a sizzling guitar solo towards the end of this song. Lack Of Empathy rocks very melodically, with very sharp and somewhat technical guitar leads. What You Give Is What You Get is about work ethic. It thrashes with a lot of melody. No Chance In Hell shreds intricately like Trivium, yet it has a mosh style that reminds me of Anthrax. Vengeance Of Time cuts and tears with a catchy melody. Human Illusion thrashes like Sacred Reich, there are some impressive technical guitar leads towards the end of this song. Apokalupsis Eschaton is a very brief acoustic guitar piece. This must have been meant to serve as a prelude for the grand finale, Only Death Awaits. This is a technical thrash song that rocks at a swift pace. I can detect some Slayer influence in there. This title track is probably the best song on this album.

This album is like a grab bag of so many different metal influences. So I would have to say that their sound mostly resembles early Mastodon. That's saying a lot, because Mastodon used to be a great metal band.The vocals of Hans Wik even sound like the vocals of Brent Hinds from Mastodon. This album was very well written and executed with impressive technical skill and style. I wouldn't listen to this album at the gym. But it is perfect for beer parties. I bought this one through I-Tunes and it fucking kicks ass.

Pretty standard thrash is on display here that shows signs of the classics like Slayer and Kreator. The style is straightforward and has been done many times before, so if you’re a fan of the type of music played then you should enjoy it more. Riffs are up front and grab hold of your attention. There’s certainly a need to crush everything in sight to be found here although the band intersperses everything with some melody at appropriate occasions as seen from the track “Lack of Empathy”.

The album lacks consistency and ability to stand out that would make it a classic thrash release and is sort of generic sounding as a result. It doesn’t quite have a memorable trait to pull you right in like many classic releases of the genre though, so don’t go expecting another Master of Puppets by any means. Instead just go thinking of quality thrash and you should be reasonably satisfied with what’s on offer. The pace of play is quite fast even for thrash at times and I think this effectively adds to what’s to be found overall.

It’s just that when directly compared to some of the better albums of the genre, we can see the downsides of the album come through a little. It just doesn’t have that little push that would help it become an even greater album despite mustering a reasonable degree of excitement. The musicianship is good enough although it doesn’t stand out in the forefront as one might hope again. Only Death Awaits has some momentum, but doesn’t push enough to be considered one of the classics of the genre by any means.