Revenge

If we look at the current global thrash metal scene, a vast part of the genre is still being carried on the backs of old, 80s bands. Think of Atrophy, Morbid Saint, or the German Darkness, Overkill, or Vio-Lence, Exodus, Razor, and Sodom, if you go back a couple of years. It is worth noting that there are very competent, legitimately worthy bands that are as excellent as their predecessors, like Warbringer or Evil Invaders, if you prefer your thrash with a decent dose of speed on the side. That's all very well, but these are all very well-known and mainstream bands in the metal community. Once you dig deeper in the trenches of the underground, it is anybody's guess what you'll find that'll blow away most of what's out there as the most played and widespread material at the time. In this case, we have Released Anger from Greece, who despite releasing an excellent debut in the mid-2000s, remained a heavily obscure name in and outside of Europe. That disc was great, and it already demonstrated the band's relentless aggression and viciousness, but it wasn't until the year 2017 when the band really unleashed their fury upon this world with their sophomore album Revenge.

Released Anger plays a generally fast, angry, furious, highly aggressive kind of thrash metal that spatters hate and disgust like there's no tomorrow. This is not your typical, Power Trip-following, slightly (or strongly) crossover-oriented, comfy, brainless dime-a-dozen thrash album. This is a brutally savage, endlessly merciless, and malicious album that sounds out of place in the year 2017 when it was released. The metaphorical period this was released is sometime between 1988 and 1992. Most of the complaints against this album have been the fact that yes, this is a fast album, it's vicious, it is crushing and thrashing hard, but the vocals sound like Mille Petrozza from Kreator. I don't see why that's a problem, Mille from Kreator is a great vocalist, and in this case, the band is hardly a copycat. Their vocalist happens to sound similar, but there is no direct, shameless plagiarism or anything along those lines in Revenge. If the music itself was to be described, they are somewhere between Razor and perhaps early Dark Angel, but only on the level of very slight reminiscence of the styles of those two groups, nothing more.

The beginning of the record wastes no time to drag you into the blistering madness the release creates. That's one of the most violent beginnings to any thrash album, this is how these albums are supposed to start. Who needs some weird gradually increasing keyboard notes or any of that nonsense these bands utilize? Just floor it like these guys, for fuck's sake. The beginning of "Revenge" therefore accurately forecasts what's about to happen during the 42-minute runtime of the album, which is mindless, anger-driven obliteration. But the speed is not the only thing at which the band excels. One of the unique elements of this album is the almost comically, ludicrously, supersonically fast tremolo-picking, which buzzsaws through the speakers with overwhelming force. Listen to "Fight Back" from about 1:37, that's one of the most violent and bloodthirsty riffs I've heard in a long time, especially among modern bands. Speaking of riffs, how about "Certain Death", which is not quite on the level of Sadus' song, but they are pretty damn close to it. They even managed to bring a bit of distantly readable and coherent melodies into the bloodbath, and those slid power chords mixed with the alternate-picked notes are one hell of a backbone to the piece. Still, one of the strongest songs on here is "Justice", which although it is slower than some others, packs one of the most headbanging, undeniable pre-chorus parts, those high-range power chords combined with the vocalist's cleverly divided, aggressively spat-out words on top of everything. Bonus points for the inclusion of bass on that song more than on some others except for "Inner Enemies". Thankfully, the band never loses their momentum, and their constant pursuit of speed and musical violence does not hurt their quality of riffs and solos, they are easily able to keep up with themselves on the technical/creative side as well. Only a handful of bands manage to write albums such as these without sacrificing a great deal of compositional value, but Released Anger managed to avoid losing any of it.

Unfortunately, the band showed no sign of life since this release. Their debut was already very needed for thrash metal, as it is essentially a slightly friendlier version of this release. But this one is easily one of the greatest post-2010s albums I've heard, just like how Hypnosia's Extreme Hatred is one of the greatest albums of the early-2000s period. In a world in which a lot of old bands are slowly wearing out and are becoming slower and weaker, bands like this manage to correct the course of the genre in history by releasing records like this, that capture what this genre and style is all about. No ballads, no 7-8 minute slow-paced wishy-washy bullshit, no exhausted doom and gloom. Only full gas all the way through, and never any compromise. I sure hope this isn't the last time we hear of Released Anger, but even if it is, they managed to substantially contribute to the genre, even if they only released two full-lengths.

I've mentioned it before and I'm going to again: in this whole old school thrash revival thing you really have to search to sort the worthy bands from the mere pretenders. Most of the stuff in this genre is as boring as intently watching paint dry. It's for a big part kids reliving times they didn't experience the first time around. Good for them, not so interesting for me personally, because, let's face it, very few of these nowadays thrashers will be able to release something like a new "Darkness Descends", "Forbidden Evil" or "Ignorance" anytime soon. And neither will Released Anger, but I found them to be more enjoyable than a band like Havok, to name one.

This is because the music sounds really familiar and that's in great part due to the vocals, it's like listening to a young version of Kreator's Mille. What also plays in their advantage is that their music is faster than most of the stuff I hear these days. I'd describe it as a cross of Kreator's period between "Terrible Certainty" and "Coma of Souls" albums with Vio-lence's first two records. I even heard some dashes of Annihilator and Anthrax in the music as well. The band is at it's best when they go full throttle, and it is clear that this band consists of amazing musicians who deliver an excellent performance. I find myself grinning inanely, tapping my feet and nodding along approvingly listening to them speed through their compositions. However, in the fifth track, "Inner Enemies", the band slow it down a notch and, for me, that wasn't necessary. It's a longer, groovier track and starts to bore me pretty quickly. And there is more that rubs me the wrong way. The album's dry sounding production knocks the balls out of the proceedings a tad. It's just too clean and could have used more grit to it, now it makes the drums sound pretty flat and that's a screaming shame because their drummer is an absolute beast behind the kit. On the upside, they conclude the proceedings with a not so obvious cover of Dutch death/thrash legends Thanatos and they absolutely nail it!

The band is at it's best when they're going 666 miles per hour, simple as that. I also appreciate the familiar sound they have, it brings back memories of the faster thrashers of the late 80's and early 90's like (a lot of) Kreator, Vio-lence and Dutch speed dealers like Dead Head and the aforementioned Thanatos. If they would've gone for a more organic production and had dropped the fifth track this would've had me all up in a bundle. Still, this stuff kicks way more ass than what 95 % of the present day thrash bands (and a lot of the reunited ones!) churn out nowadays.