AVENGER OF BLOOD
Death Brigade
Heavy ArtilleryTrack listing:
01. Vicious Onslaught
02. Death Brigade
03. When Will You Die
04. Mortally Wounded
05. Bloodseeker
06. Poserslaughter
07. Terminate
08. Sadistic Inquisitor
09. Beneath the Curse
10. Assassins
The Heavy Artillerylabel continues its winning streak, unearthing more American retro-thrash with heart, guts and spiked armbands galore. AVENGER OF BLOOD hail from Las Vegas, and their German-influenced thrash will satisfy anyone looking for that 1987 feeling they got from their old KREATOR and DESTRUCTION albums.
Already turning some heads, apparently (how the hell does a band this green get Joe Petagno to do their album cover?),AVENGER OF BLOOD keep it simple and worshipful here. That does, of course, mean that this album is predictable to a fault, and the whole thing kinda has that moldering old-LP basement funk to it. But something tells me the band wouldn't have it any other way — from the exuberant off-the-rails thrash tempo to the slightly-too-long songs to the gleefully hoarse vocals, this is pure old-school homage, and its heart and enthusiasm carry the record over the spots where the songs may lack a little inspiration.
There's just not much to say about a band like this (besides "hey, they sound like an old thrash band"),but don't take that as a mark against the level of quality here. AVENGER OF BLOOD sound like a lost second-tier act from the Noise Records roster of twenty years ago, and that's exactly what they were aiming for, so if you're still scarfing up the best scraps of this neo-thrash movement, "Death Brigade" should be on your shopping list. Mille Petrozza is either beaming like a proud papa, or filing a restraining order, as we speak.