Metal or Death EP

The first EP from the rechristened Canadian thrashers Terrifier, “Metal or Death,” serves as an explosive re-introduction for the band to hold over the followers of their previous outing, and more than expresses itself as a separate entity.

On the music side of things, there’s a lot to like here. The framework here is generally old-school thrash with extreme doses of speed metal styles, making for a tight, densely-layered album full of scorching riff-work along high-speed paces. Delving into technically-proficient displays quite rarely, it’s more content to display things with those tight, raging guitars that burst along quite quickly with the thrash tempo but hold themselves more in line with traditional heavy metal patterns, forging a highly addictive brand of thrash on display here. At times, the traditional thrash patterns are utilized instead of the more traditional metal elements but this still comes across more like a hyperactive mixture of the two more-often than not with the traditional metal making for a sturdy frame for the raging speed to hold itself on, with the clanking bass-lines and heavy, pounding drumming doing this nicely with the guitars racing and zipping along over the top of this. Making it all the more enjoyable is the fact that there’s a really solid, dirty old-school production job here that makes this stand-out quite nicely with delivering even more of a retro feel on the album than just the songs themselves and gets this bumped up even more by adding that extra layer to make the brief material quite fun. This pretty much defines the majority of the tracks here, since there’s only three tracks offered and they’re not that long with one cracking four minutes and the other two at three-and-a-half minutes which really doesn’t leave much time to get into things before the next song comes in as you’re raging through the track and it comes to a stop for the next one. Most likely this is due to keep the band fresh in fans’ heads following the name change, and it works well on that account but as a stand-alone effort it does offer up some wanting desires for more material that go unheeded.

Despite only being three tracks, there’s a ton of highlights here. Opening with the title track, with its blazing, tight patterns, speed-metal rhythms and heavy, pounding riff-work with extended soloing, this gets out of the gates in a hurry and really offers up plenty of groovy highlights which set the stage incredibly well. ‘Infernal Overdrive’ offers up fiery technicality and swirling solo melodies alongside pounding thrash rhythms and up-tempo paces that blazes through with a searing intensity propelled by the speed metal riffs and heavier rhythm section, positioning this as the highlight of the album. Ending on a high, finale ‘Wretched Damnation’ leaves the heavy metal behind for traditional thrash patterns and intense speed metal riffing along thumping rhythm sections and tight drumming for a wholly different feel but nevertheless comes off as immensely enjoyable.

Frankly, there’s not much to this other than being an introduction to the new band following the name change with very little differencing this one from their previously ushered work. Putting only three tracks here does this one a slight disservice with a pronounced lack of really charging tracks to get invested in here, but the feral energy and relentless speed here does some good, counterbalancing the effect of the brief running time enough that it becomes wholly listenable even if the hardcore fans of the previous incarnation are going to be the target audience.

It seems like a lot of the bands that are playing 80s style metal, whether it be traditional, doom or thrash get lumped into the whole "retro" category. I think that retro is used to loosely. To me a band is retro if it goes out of it's way to sound like a throwback. Then there are some that are the real deal. British Columbia's Terrifier is that real deal. Actually formed in 2003 under the name of Skull Hammer they changed their name to Terrifier in 2012 and released this three song EP in July of 2013. These guys manage to kick the living shit outta me in just under twelve minutes with their riff laden thrash metal. These guys are no joke, this is head banging, fist banging, moshing thrash metal.

The EP kicks off with the title track and the riff fest begins. The song is fast and well written with a hint of being technical. The riffs do not let up on this song as the vocals pummel you with their aggression. This reminds me of the 80s. The solos are amazing on this song being very technical. There are a lot of dual harmony leads that add some melody to this aggression. This song is simply a neck breaker. "Infernal Overdrive is another song that just pounds you with riffs and speed. There's some blasts in there that lead to some absolutely godly solos. Some of the riffs actually remind me of early Iced Earth triplets but used sparingly. The assault continues with the third and final song. "Wretched Damnation." This is another speedy thrash number with aggressive riffs and amazing solos. This is thrash done right.

This album is actually well produced with a more classic sound but with enough modern production to not sound dated. You can't go wrong with this band because they know how to write catchy thrash songs that are fuckin' good. I'm waiting to see what this band does next because with the right exposure they could go very far. The only thing wrong with this EP is that there wasn't more of it. This is a band to watch.

Digital Download Provided by Vlad Promotion


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