Kicking it old school – but doing it in a modern way
As a question it might be the most redundant ever asked: “we’ve got time for one more”, offers Patrick the lead singer with Brummie thrashers, Eradikator, “do you want it slow or fast?” No metal crowd is ever going to ask for slow, and “Mesmerised” is anything but. What it is though, is brilliant and ample proof as to why MV has long thought that they were the best thrash band in the U.K. “Astral Body”, another from their wonderful second album “Edge Of Humanity” is getting better and better with repeated road testing and the new song they try out is evidence this is not a band to rest on their laurels. This is a warm up for their appearance at Bloodstock this weekend and the Sophie tent won’t know what’s hit it.
Warbringer’s last song as usual is “Combat Shock”. Not for nothing does it contain the line “war to end all wars” and if the world is going to be razed to the ground by some despot or the other, then the Californian beast can provide the background noise. Vicious, but in a totally thrash way, the set they play, like when they were last here in the spring, starts with the first five from “Woe To The Vanquished” which means “Silhouettes” rumbles in like a tank, before the title track and the absolute highlight “Remain Violent” finish the job of flattening the place. The older material too takes on a new life in the hands of this line up of the band and “Shatter Like Glass” absolutely crushes, while “Hunter Seeker” is a precision kill. It’s a line he often uses but you can’t fault the logic here when frontman John Kevill sneers “let’s see the modern day Big Four play this hard. But then, the torch is clearly being passed anyway.
Then of course mentioning the Big 4 may have always been redundant. It didn’t after all include Exodus, Annihilator or Death Angel.
Maybe that’s what Mark Osegueda means when he talks about the fact his band have had to battle “the bullshit after bullshit” over the decades that have brought them here? Only he knows, but watching them play “Kill As One” in what would usually be the encore, you can only imagine the pent up frustration that manifests itself in the fists in the air.
That song might be 30 years old, but credit to the band for not making this some kind of “Ultra-Violence” rehash and navel gazing nostalgia exercise. Instead two thirds of the set is culled from the last three albums. “Father Of Lies” from the most recent is a thumping affair, which is counterbalanced by the mid-paced (for this set anything at 90mph counts as mid-paced) lost.
Osegueda makes frequent references to the “brotherhood” of metal, and there is little doubt that he means it most sincerely. He is also a singer of some ability, and the one cover, Sabbath’s “Falling Off The Edge Of The World” brings his obvious Dio stylings right to the fore.
This night, though, is a celebration of thrash metal, and for 75 minutes, Death Angel, deliver a masterclass in how to play it. “Caster Of Shame” and “Left For Dead” amount to beatdowns, and you wouldn’t want them any other way.
It is interesting that the only founder member left, guitarist Rob Cavestany is content to keep away from the limelight, perhaps enjoying the madness he is helping to create, and letting others take centre stage.
“The Moth” ends things and fittingly for a band at much as one with their audience as this there is no encore, what there is instead is a promise to return, but more than that there is a real feeling that Death Angel are the embodiment of everything thrash metal should be about. Loud, brash, unashamed, and untamed and above all never backing down.
