Thrash me?
Hang on a minute, is thrash metal making a comeback and no one told me? This is the second thrash album to appear before me this month. Honestly, nothing for ten years and then two in a month. Whereas the last thrash album that came by reminded me of Anthrax from the eighties (Municipal Waste review) this offering from German metallers Abandoned is, at least musically, firmly in the Overkill camp. This of course is a good thing; Overkill had a brilliant driving force that pricked your ears up straight away. This has that feeling to it and you expect the singer to come in with lots of fast lyrics and a high pitched last line of the chorus to go with it.
Vocally however, I'm not sure where they are, the singer doesn't really have a thrash voice which tends to be a spitting, screeching banshee. This is more gravely than that, deep and rough but without crossing into cookie monster territory. The vocal melodies all tend to be very similar and simple; it's quite easy to drift off after a few songs.
As mentioned earlier the music is top notch but again it suffers a little from being short on ideas, whereas Overkill kept it fresh throughout within the confines of their genre, Abandoned seem to stagnate. That's not to say this is all the same there are some good ideas and playing but the structures of the songs are all very similar.
There is something else that I really must mention, on the back of the cd case there is a photograph of the band sat at a bar, they look a good fun bunch of chaps with winning smiles and a sense of humour coming across even through a photograph. Why then? Why oh why did they pick the cover for this album to be a woman chained to a wall in a cell, she's on her knees looking like she has been abused, with a dog bowl on the floor next to her. It's not even done in a titillating way with a tongue in cheek wink to those eighties covers of women in torn clothing sucking a lollipop, no this is done in a gritty manner that has managed to be the most offensive thing I've seen this year. It reminds me of the spoof album 'Sniff the glove' from the spinal tap movie but at least that was being ironic, this is just wrong.
That's abandoned then, an average thrash album with a completely shit cover.