A grand return to thrash? Almost.
Thrash metal has come, gone, and apparently come again. Grief of War seeks to capture the title of reigning champions of thrash's return with their release A Mounting Crisis...As Their Fury Got Released. This is something not to be taken lightly by some of us who were brought up on thrash metal and have rather high standards when it comes to this sort of thing. Grief of War opens with the track “Hatred Burns” which fades in with what sounds like the approach of war, and then begins the scathing assault on the listener’s ear drums. An acoustic intro might have won them bonus points. This truly is thrash metal along the lines of Nuclear Assault and even Testament. The vocals are not as high-pitched as Nuclear Assault nor are they as present as those of Testament’s Chuck Billy, but they sit in the mix more and add to the sound rather than provide distraction.
“Rat Race” starts off with an excellent instrumental section at the beginning that leads to another up tempo standard thrash verse. The breakdowns in this tune breathe "early Megadeth." The leads are quite good as well; they supply melodic support and aren’t just mindless noodling.
Track three always seems like a good place to change the pace a bit. “Sown by Greed” just might be a little too slow and perhaps a bad choice here. It’s a mid tempo thrasher along the lines of “Make Me Laugh” by Anthrax or perhaps a slower Exodus tune. This isn’t a bad song, but it seems a little too slow.
“Don’t Walk Away” opens very much like a Testament tune. In fact, I believe that the lead guitar part at the beginning just might be dead on. This track is hurt by the attempt at angry gang vocals in the chorus. The vocals are much better when they are the higher, shouting melodically type. Here’s where the album starts to get a little old for me. The one thing that all the decent thrash bands did back in the heyday of thrash was to mix up the songs a bit more. There’s only so much of a fast verse, slower bridge and breakdown chorus that one can take before it gets old. This album could have been shorter based on the lack of variety in the tracks. If this album had ended at “Resist,” I would have been much happier with it.
All in all A Mounting Crisis... is not bad at all. If this is a sign of things to come in the world of thrash, the future just might be looking bright.
| Reviewer: Dave Warren Added: February 27th 2008 |
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