Terror of the Concrete World

This act were one of the earliest entries into the extreme Dutch metal roster although their beginnings were more in the hardcore camp. By the time they reached the official release stage with the album reviewed here, the style had already shifted towards some seriously hard-hitting thrash with only sparse remnants from their more stripped-down past, one of them being the harsh semi-shouty, quarrelsome vocals.

Aggressive vicious old school stuff we have here that will remind of Sacred Reich’s "Ignorance”, Slayer’s “Reign in Blood”, and Evildead’s “Annihilation of Civilization”. Some of the more brutal cuts easily go towards the proto-death realm like the unbridled ball of Slayer-esque fury "An Inhuman Choice", and the even less restrained wild ride "Don't Feed Me with Your Words". “Loser” is the clear highlight, less than 3-min of all-instrumental, marginally sophisticated at times, thrashing fury, and "Absurd Hate" adds more style to the proceedings with tasteful proficient licks ala the master Mike Scaccia (R.I.P.; Ministry, Rigor Mortis). A tiring journey for sure which still offers a respite in the form of "Life Such-As Hunting Wild", a surprisingly calmer power metal-based number, but don’t expect any mercy from "Black Memory", another unbridled take on the proto-death idea, and on "Born to Survive" which ends the album in the most hyper-active headbanging fashion.

The late-80’s Dutch thrash metal scene was quickly filling up with good talented outfits (Disabuse, Usurper, Dead Head, Deafen, Messina, Crystal lake (later Crustacean), etc.) who were creating healthy competition to the already deemed veterans Mandator, Thanatos, and Vulture, but regardless of the voluminous presence of both old and new practitioners, this opus here definitely left its trace on the field due its uncompromising character, the guys siding more with the death-prone musings of Thanatos than with the more intricate, thought-out vistas of Vulture and Mandator.

Mentioning the last two, the band’s sophomore was an admirable attempt at a more serious song-writing which was reflected in longer, more diverse compositions and several decidedly more technical riff-formulas. A superior offering from a compositional point-of-view, it somewhat lacked the vigour and the infernal intensity of this album, and although some may consider it the more preferred work, this first saga to the band’s beloved concrete world seems to enchant more... and it also provides a stronger feeling of belligerence for one to try and shatter the latter.