It’s quite unfortunate to learn that some really ass kicking thrash metal albums came out when the era of thrash was almost coming to an end in the early nineties. Killed primarily by the changing tastes of the masses and the affinity towards more radio friendly genres, thrash metal had basically become quite obsolete and almost extinct. The second album of D.A.M also suffered a similar fate sadly. Had this been released a few years before, this would have put many other albums to shame. After a fairly pedestrian debut, D.A.M came out with this solid if not groundbreaking follow up. They got everything right on this release. Be it songwriting, musicianship or even production, everything was top notch.
The album kicks off with speed with Man of Violence with a riff that can rival the best opening thrash riffs of all time. How often do you come across opening tracks that start off with pace right from the start? The answer would be close to negligible. A great song to start off with.
The next track, House of Cards continues the flow with some great riffs, a catchy mid section lead solo and some well timed background shouts. Although a mid paced song it’s fairly good for stomping. The same can be said about the third track, Appointment with Fear which has a good rhythm section although some sections of this track could be very annoying at times.
We then have two monster songs, Thought for the Day and
Winter’s Tear. The former being a bonus track on this album ,has a splendid riff which carries throughout the length of the song and mainly mid tempo in approach apart from the few speeding moments in between and the latter track having a neat little bass intro reminiscent of
Megadeth’s Five Magics which is good. This song has some very good moments even if it’s moderately long for a thrash metal song.
The Innocent one again starts off with a bass solo again with some instrument less verses which lend some diversity to this song but this track doesn’t do much for me apart from some riffs and a decent solo in between. The follow up My
Twisted Mind starts off with a lady answering her telephone and the voice at the other end warning her that she’s been watched. This short little intro leads to a great song with amazing riffs and well timed breakdowns. This is easily one of the better songs on the album.
Circles is the other bonus track on this album which is mid paced and one this album could have done without. It doesn’t pack a punch as much as the other tracks do and moreover it’s over 6 minutes long. However after the plodding nature of
Circles the album picks up speed again with No
Escape which starts off with a catchy sweep picking solo. This song’s one of the faster tracks on the album with some punk sounding riffs in between, accentuating the feel of the song altogether. It’s ideal for some quality headbanging.
The penultimate song on this album,
Beneath Closed
Eyes starts off with a plodding riff again which could have easily made its way on a doom metal album. Especially considering the speed of the initial half of this song and the usage of keyboards in some parts makes it all the more obvious. But after about 3 minutes into the song, the song picks up the same speed with which the album started. To add to this, vocalist
Jason McLouglin adds his little banshee wail followed by a well timed solo creating the perfect finish for the album. The outro track
Inside Outro, needless to say is just a formality finisher.
Overall, this album is very likely to appeal to the more hardened thrash metal fans including the ones who tend to stay away from the more brutal likes of say
Morbid Saint,
Dark Angel or even
Incubus. Fans of the big four and also
Atrophy,
Vendetta,
Nasty Savage or even
Xentrix will definitely dig into this one for sure. This is as good as Brit thrash can actually get.
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