Victims of Deception

By 1991, thrash was growing more and more diverse than it was when it started in the early 80's. Heathen's second album, Victims of Deception, is one of several thrash albums that saw a slight change in the style of thrash metal. Along with Megadeth's thrash classic, Rust In Piece, Annihilator's Alice In Hell, Testament's first three albums, and Forbidden's Forbidden Evil, Victims of Deception is one of the defining technical (or "tech") thrash metal albums. With Metallica laying down the blueprints for "tech" thrash with Master of Puppets and ...And Justice For All, Victims of Deception finishes what Justice began. Victims contains a lot of the elements of Justice with VERY long and complex songs while still containing most of thrash metal's roots. The only song that doesn't clock over five minutes is the short three minute instrumental entitled "Guitarmony".

Vocalist Dave White has a lot of talent and has the tendancy to stay with the highs. He sounds a lot like Joey Belladona of Anthrax and can be a candidate for a power metal band. The guitar players include shredders Lee Altus and Doug Percy. Both are very talented with a lot of influence from Yngwie Malmsteen, Kirk Hammett, Dave Murray/Adrian Smith, and many other early heavy metal guitar greats. Every song features really well crafted and techincal solos and both are very diverse in technique, using sweep picking, fluid legato, and alternate picking. The riffing is very great too. The riffs are fast, technical, and very catchy and the tone and style of the riffs is very similar to that of Master of Puppets and ...And Justice For All. Bass duties were given to Blind Illusion mastermind Marc Bienderman. He doesn't really stand out much other than to provide the "backbone" of the music. The drumming is very good. Darren Miller has a lot of talent and pounds really well. The production is really good too. All the instruments sound great and I especially like the guitar tone.

Victims of Deception contains ten tracks with the average track lasting about six to seven minutes. The album opens with "Hypnotized", which starts with a speach by someone before slowly building up into a crunching thrash anthem. The song is about people being tricked into following religious law and how Dave White believes that religion is nothing but a load of hypocritical lies. Those who join are being "Hypnotized" by the church. Oppiate the Masses is a mid paced song with a lot of complexed structures and reminds me a lot of the title track to ...And Justice For All. Heathen's Song is another long epic, clocking in at almost ten minutes! The album also contains a nice cover of Rainbow's Kill the King, a nice early example of speed metal. Fear of the Unknown is another standout track that reminds me a lot of an Iron Maiden song with Metallica influence. Prisoners of Fate is the albums ballad with a lot of great singing and really awsome lyrics. Lee and Doug pull out some of the albums best solos as the song slowly fades out. Morbid Curiosity is one hell of a speed metal mania. Not one of the best tracks on the album but still really good. As mentioned before, Guitarmony is a three minute composition with a lot of really great guitar playinng. Mercy Is No Virture and Timeless Cell of Prophecy are both what I'd call "filler" tracks. While they're aren't as good as the first half of the album, they are both still fun to listen to. While the band hasn't released a full length since this album, Heathen none the less made this album a thrash classic. I love this album and any fan of thrash metal will love it too.