Sarcastic Rhymes

I must admit, I've had a lot of difficulty seeing the appeal of thrash. Perhaps it was my constant overexposure to Metallica (whom never appealed greatly) in my teenage years, but I find that with some exceptions, American thrash just doesn’t float my boat. So thank the (Dark) Lord for German thrash.

Once I found my way to Holy Moses and Destruction, I could see the worth of thrash as a genre, and those bands are apt comparisons for the uncompromising brutality of 21st Century Killing Machine. I was doubtful that a free four track demo from an obscure band who may never accomplish anything would be worth my time. That is not a mistake I will repeat.

Even if these thirteen minutes constitute the entire discography of this band, it’s thirteen minutes well worth listening to several times over. The production is truly excellent, accentuating the heaviness of the riffs and vicious vocals with tremendous clarity. This is where most thrash bands fail spectacularly to my mind. I’m of the school of thought that raw production and just plain bad production are two separate things, and 21st CKM strike the perfect balance for me.

The guitar tone is spot on and the riffs are of such a skull crushing variety as to do Holy Moses proud. The vocals fit perfectly for me, finding a middle ground between traditional thrash and outright death growls. In fact, they’d pass for death metal vocals in another context. Here though, they have such furious passion, anger and energy that they feel more upbeat and invigorating than dark and depressing.

In case I’ve somehow been too subtle to this point, this is a bloody excellent demo that anyone with a penchant for brutal German thrash needs to listen to. Apparently the band is still active, so I can only hope they manage to swing a record deal and bring us an entire album of this quality. The world would be a better place for having heard it. Thrash ‘til death!