There Will Be Blood

Getting pissed off at those damned neighbors who keep insisting that you keep your music down to a respectable level? Tired of that annoying neighborhood informant who keeps spying on your daily affairs? Well, fear not, for there is more than one way to bloody up an axe than to go the route of the literal axe murderer. Just mix up some of the finest Motörhead and Metallica riffs, crunch them up with a somewhat more processed guitar sound, downplay the production value just a tad and throw in a scream happy wailer in the mold of Tom Araya and with no pun intended I assure you, “There Will Be Blood”. Believe me when I tell you, that gigantic blood stained axe on the cover of this bad boy is not just for show.

The band behind this bloody exterior and mean as hell interior fancies itself as some sort of Vindicator, though it would seem the primary wrong they are righting is the fact that Violent Night has yet to put out a full length album in nearly 10 years of existence. Rest assured, if one wishes to denigrate one of the two bands as being a mere side-project, it would not be this one that takes the axe (yeah, that pun was intended). Granted, this particular incarnation is a bit more punk infused and flirts with the crossover sound a bit more than the progressive character of the latter outfit, but they carry their sound quite nicely and pull off a mean mixture of “Overkill” meets “Kill ‘Em All” with a slight dash of “Game Over” just for good measure.

While this whole album is an exercise in consistent auditory treats, the more of an early 80s Metallica feel they go for the better they tend to sound. Case and point being the gallop happy self-title song “Vindicator” which dishes out a nice mixture of “Phantom Lord” and “Ace Of Spades” in one tight little package covered with red stained spikes. Plenty of room for gut-wrenching speeders is made too in the mold of “Gore Orphanage” and “There Will Be Blood”, as vocalist Vic Stown rambles like a demented skin-head with the appropriate gang-chorus bringing up his rear. Interestingly enough, the band likes to front load their mid-tempo thrashers as seen in the crunch-infused “Deathfront Demons” and “Fresh Outta Hell”, both of which are somewhat reminiscent of “Seek And Destroy” and bring out more of a vintage NWOBHM feel in the guitar department.

This is the sort of album that was probably more suited to 1983, yet didn’t manage to get written until 2008, but hey, better late than never. Would Lemmy’s wicked bass assault be any less powerful had he been a few years later than Steve Harris in upping the instruments functionality in the metal medium? The production on this decrepit little zombie cookie is somewhat lackluster, particularly the dry as hell drum sound, but otherwise it’s a solid rollercoaster of good old thrashing that could use a bit more love. So get out those special customer speaker and crank that shit up to 11, because this is one blood bath that deserves to be heard by both the willing and the unwitting.