Malicious Intent

“…unchained, got the hiss of a rattlesnake…”

So what if Malicious Intent isn’t Evil Invaders? Few albums are. So what if it doesn’t stroll around 1986 shoulder to shoulder with releases reigning in blood, mastering puppets, killing with pleasure, and descending into darkness? Few albums do. It certainly isn’t anywhere near the barrel bottom where rightfully crappy output look for light sources still to this day. Many albums are. And instead of complaining, how about if we’re thankful these Canucks’ fourth wrecking ball didn’t try to flatten us with the untold might ’86 thrash/speed acts like Juggernaut, Anvil Bitch, and Impaler thought they delivered.

Personally, as a kneeler to/virally full-blown fan of Evil Invaders, my mid-teen eyes (exemplified and amplified by the title song’s video) could see Razor of ‘86 doing no wrong even before this thing had seen its first sharpening stone. Sorta like countrymates Anvil, it was simply hard for me to find fault with these guys. Decades pass, and no longer is it a mere assumption or educated guess that more than a few fans, especially those championing Evil Invaders, were kinda let down by Malicious Intent, and for a few that’s putting it nicely.

A few darkly negative clouds float into the disc’s atmosphere and screech to a halt. Hence, the cold rain felt is these majority-ruled points:

-- the production via Waxworks Studios, ’84 to now, is never patted on the head.
-- M-bro’s unswervingly single lane percussive performance has been tackled by drum enthusiasts more than a veteran linebacker.
-- the lack of structural variety is said to stand out like a sore neck.
-- the cover’s kinda stupid.

Prior to the existence of these clouds, however, the Razor of ‘85 left us at the awesome mercy of “Thrashdance”, over three minutes of fist-flying fury that eventually collides with the point in time where “Tear Me to Pieces” urges to be turned up louder. Hell, if no one’s gonna defend “Thrashdance” as a band/style-wide anthem that criminally never was, then what else can these guys do but cook up another signature to make sure ’86 has no choice but to try to figure out where this new apocalypse is storming in from even while it runs for shelter from it?

So here comes April ’86. Cloud #1: a Waxworks production that can also be found thinly muffled on ‘85’s Executioner’s Song and ’84’s Armed & Dangerous ep inexplicably kicks Evil Invaders’ extremely pleasing Phase One Studios mix off the grid (I know, I know, you get what’cha pay for and no one’s made of money, but why go with an institute that's handed you below-par results not once, but twice in the past?). Whatever the reasons, all we could do is live with it in hopes the songwriting has enough merit to shine on its own. And y’know what? For me there’s little here that says it doesn’t.

Living with Cloud #2’s claim, even when the claim happens to be pretty on the ball, isn’t too hard. We’ve survived slimmer pickins. The only song here that can dispel its attack on M-bro is least successful heat-seeker “Night Attack” and its mostly mid-pace and structurally changed-up percussion (a song that’s oddly stationed at the side one, song two spot, a place usually reserved for strong second-tier specimens [see: Slayer’s “Kill Again”, Kreator’s “Death is Your Savior” and to veer off the path a bit style-wise, Krokus’ “Eat the Rich”], but is an issue that has no bearing on Mr. Bro), and to be nice I won’t mention the overly crashy “High Speed Metal” or the fire bell-clanging ride (cymbal) of near-instrumental “K.M.A.”, a tune saved by its ultra-cool chorus. Yet in the drummer’s defense, he keeps the energy level in constant rhino charge, a mannerism reminiscent of another aforementioned ’86er that still seems to rule thrash with a bloody fist worldwide.

This percussive cannonball effect, however, also affects the album as a whole, which is where Cloud #3 threatens the sunny day with its stormy hue. You really can’t have fast drums without fast riffs. I mean, it’s thrash metal, and Thrash Metal 101’s definitive rule is without fast, it’s not thrash. Of course you can mix up tempos, but this is a strategy dismissed by Malicious Intent. For a stretch, “Night Attack” can be MI’s nowhere near as nifty “Post Mortem”, which incidentally is the start and stop of this thing’s compositional diversity. Much like Reign in Blood, with one hand you can slap the whole she-bang as one-dimensional. With the other you can crown it a thrashaholic’s paradise, and this paradox is obviously entirely up to a listener’s personal threshold.

Rhythmically, things admittedly can seem pretty similar as well. “Rebel Onslaught” and “Challenge the Eagle” play like the same piece of music, and by placing them a mere song apart doesn’t squash this, meanwhile “Tear Me to Pieces”, “Stand Before Kings” and, to a lesser degree, “Grindstone” are really only streets apart instead of separate countries like they oughta be. But this I can live with as well, because in my opinion the three are interesting enough to withstand this, then when the dust finally settles and fer yer eight bucks (mid-‘80s prices, mind you), y’got disappointment-free gigantors “A.O.D.”, “Cage the Ragers” and its barrage of Sheepdog-feral choruses, “Rebel Onslaught”/“Challenge the Eagle”, and the rabid title cut tearing the roof off this sucka and throwing the finger up for satellite photos.

Then there’s easily the least important Cloud #4. Hey, again, we’ve seen worse.

The Sheepdog continues life as one of my most beloved mouthpieces of metal even while decreasing his screaming eagle quota that tore Evil Invaders to shreds, meanwhile guitarist/chief songwriter Dave Carlo remains fully consistent in his mindset of making Razor one of thrash’s top draws (so confident is he in Razor that the only thrash band he puts on equal or near equal footing is Slayer, or so it’s been documented). *reserve this space for obligatory comment about bassist Mike Campagnolo*.

On my side of the fence, Malicious Intent kinda felt like (and still feels like) it shoulda been the follow-up to Executioner’s Song rather than Evil Invaders – a prequel instead of a sequel, if you will – and, yeah, the production has no choice but to figure into some of that, but I’m kinda glad fate didn't align it this way ‘cos then I’d have to explain Evil Invaders’ relationship to the band’s Sheepdog-era, oddball-out album Custom Killing instead, which is way more of a difficult-to-win situation.

Fun Fact 808{%” (actually more of an observation): the album ends with “K.M.A.” and one of its best (and only) screams. Yeah, I didn’t realize it either until I yanked up the volume during the song’s fade out.

“…the critics all laugh and call us the worst, but heaviness brought us this far…”