A Bizarre Gardening Accident

Schmier the Destructor became Schmier the Headhunter in the early-90’s, following his departure from his old colleagues Destruction, a separation which wasn’t exactly very amicable. Anyway, the fans didn’t have to spend too much time grieving over this incident as the man quickly formed a new outfit with the drum guru Jorg Michael (the list is simply too long) and the guitarist of the heavy metal purveyors Talon Uwe Hoffmann. And not only but the debut was a rousing classic speed/thrashing fest that may have even been the better alternative for the audience to Destruction’s own “Cracked Brain”, the latter continuing the more technical approach epitomized for “Release from Agony”.

Nope, this first instalment was by no means a parody, and although the fanbase must have been terrified by the title of the album reviewed here, the musical content showed only too well that Schmier and Co. had no intentions on fooling around… save for a few isolated goofy jokes. Two of the kind here, the very short hyper-active cover of Ian Dury’s “Sex & Drugs & Rock'n Roll” served at the end, and the longer but equally frolic and comic, also cover, “Ramalama” of the obscure US rhythm’n bluesers The Edsels, smacked in the middle.

These two unpretentious tunes by no means spoil the fun here, and if we also exclude the beginning where Schmier slubbers about being a banana tree under the sound of the old "Oh What a Pleasure" evergreen theme, everything else lives up to the old school speed/thrash expectations. Well, there’s some power metal that has been brought for the ride, and the latter can be detected whenever the bursting thrashing hegemony takes a break, although both “Signs of Insanity” and “Hit Machine” are pretty much relentless moshers, the guys obviously having fun playing these sharp but also stylish semi-technical hooks. The epic here is called “Born in the Woods”, an imposing heavy behemoth which slow-burning layout works quite well, the impatient gallops on “Boozer” stirring another blitzkrieg pogo in no time, the sizzling setting retained later with ease, the band trying something calmer and more restrained with the nice heavy ballad "Pangs of Remorse" and with the brooding power/thrash hybrider “Rude Philosophy”.

Schmier does try to actually sing here, even more so than on the first outing, and the fact that he reveals his vocal skills more fully adds another plus to this album’s resume, giving more character to the music, including the more aggressive material. The combustible immediacy, on which the debut was entirely based, is kind of missing here, but this is to be expected: this is the band’s second outing, they’ve grown, they’ve matured beyond the give-it-all first impression… although to talk about maturity in the case of Schmier or Michael would be a bit redundant, with both of them having long since entered the metal luminaries’ hall of fame by that time. And, there’s neither anything incidental nor bizarre at play here: save for a few more stylish tricks, there’s nothing progressive or overtly intricate going on, the joke tracks/covers inserted perfectly legitimate, never ruining the mood or the guys’ intentions.

The sequel “Rebirth” was not exactly a resurrection stint, but flirtations with the modern trends were not hard to detect here and there, the band also trying to sound both slower and more technical, the ambition exhibited admirable but not achieved conclusively, and must have been voted to be given one more go on the next instalment… which appeared whole 14 years later as Schmier terminated this enterprise in order to sing some more with his old colleagues from Destruction. As it became evident that there was solid fanbase for the Destruction old school thrash exploits in the new millennium, the Headhunter initiative was left in the sidelines for a while, the fourth outing showing up eventually in 2008. Not as convincing as the previous three efforts, this opus also had an even heftier sniff of power metal added to the speed/thrashing melee, the three musketeers also relying on familiar tunes (covers of Skid Row and Judas Priest) from the past to increase their appeal.

By no means the finest product that Schmier has put his signature under, this opus has been hanging in the ether without a follow-up for over 14 years now… with the Destruction saga going on, especially now that the band founder Mike Sifringer has left, it doesn’t seem very likely that Schmier would swing things in the Headhunter direction… unless there’s another flowerbed in his garden that needs some seriously bizarre trampling.