Extremities '91

So, Palo Alto’s finest thrash band return with their third and arguably best release, proving that there is more to Palo Alto than Stanford woman’s basketball. (and I don’t really follow basketball anyway.) I used to follow these guys though, and they knocked it out of the park here with this release. Four great songs, all of them great ripping thrashcore metal executed nearly perfectly. Yeah I know; technically there are five tracks on here but, well, more on that in a minute.

This is a total whirlwind of angry thrash, the kind where the riffs tear the skin off your bones and you just cant stop headbanging. This is absolutely excellent. Fast as heck, brutal, etc. like all good thrash bands aspire to. It reminds me of Slayer at their most unrestrained fury; think of the best parts of “Reign in Blood.” The reason these guys pull it off where others can’t, is that the riffs, intensity, and production are instantly effective and memorable. There are no boring sections, or needlessly overcomplicated parts, it’s just go, hit the gas, and shred away at everything in front of you. And yeah, the songs do have complexity to them but the complexity never halts the flow of the tunes.

Production wise, this is darn near perfect. Loud, clear, with everything turned up full blast but well balanced. Nothing is held back, nothing is watered down. The guitars have plenty of distortion but not in an overly fuzzy sense, nor is it that typical death metal grind noise. You could compare the overall guitar sound to that of Slayer, actually, which is a good thing. One thing I have always liked about this band is the bass sound- it’s loud, grinding and distorted and altogether perfect for this kind of thrashing energy. For instance, the bass kicks off the first song with some cool effects and just kicks the whole song into gear. The vocals are loud and angry, with that cruel, angry barking delivery that ruled the thrash scene before death and black metal made it obsolete. The guitars shred and stab, with plenty of divebomb, King/Hanneman inspired shredding- these guys are not guitar virtuosos but they don’t need to be, because what they do works just fine here.

But then you get to the end of the fourth track (“Hate”) and you may as well just turn off the tape player. Track 5 is the sort of Mentors-ish joke track that some bands like to throw around because they think it “Shows they have a sense of humor” or “they don’t take themselves too seriously” or whatever. Call me a prude, but I’ve always felt these “X rated adult” songs like this are a waste of time. Maybe it is funny if you are like, twelve or thirteen years old, I dunno. I never liked the Mentors, personally, but if you are into this sort of “humor” then you might also wish the song had a decent riff or at least some of the energy of the four “real” songs. (Its just a “dunt dunt DUH nuh, dunt dunt DUH nun” over and over again type of riff.)

So there it is, four excellent thrashers and one… well; let’s just call it four excellent tracks. This is an essential purchase for fans of Slayer, Kreator, and the more violent extreme end of thrash.