Destruction & Mantic Ritual preview
Destruction, Mantic Ritual
Pearl Room, Mokena
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Old-schoolers love to gripe about the “new wave of thrash metal” — what gives kids who weren’t born when The Legacy came out the right to play this music? –but that’s a whole article in and of itself. Whether you do or don’t like bands like Warbringer, Toxic Holocaust, Evile, or Fueled By Fire, though, the great thing about thrash’s revival is the subsequent resurrection of some of the bands who had otherwise, and unfairly, been forgotten.
To say Germany’s Destruction didn’t eclipse the popularity of U.S. peers like Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer is stating the obvious, but the group actually never even rank among the Overkills, Testaments, and Exoduses. Actually, Destruction wasn’t even the top dog of its own homeland (only Americans went more apeshit for thrash than Germans) — that title went to Kreator . . . with Sodom a close second. This new wave of thrash, though, has suddenly cast the spotlight squarely on bands like Destruction, which released the absolutely ripping D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. last summer. Go see some of these 20-something-year-old kids play, and you’re likely to see more Destruction and Kreator (which released the equally ripping Hordes Of Chaos earlier this year) patches on their denim jackets than Metallica and Megadeth. In fact, you could make the argument – crossover acts like Municipal Waste and Cross Examination aside – a majority of “new thrash” is more influenced by the German, or Teutonic, style than its American counterpart.
Pennsylvania-based Mantic Ritual even recorded its debut full-length in Germany, but that’s about the only way the band validates our whole “more influenced by Germans than Americans” theory, because Executioner (Nuclear Blast) is pure US-of-fucking-A thrash. The obvious suspects are Exodus (Dan Wetmore’s frantic vocals) and Metallica (the twisting, turning, seven-minute “Souls”), but occasionally Wetmore and Jeff Potts throw down some intricate, Mustaine-ish rhythm chops as well.
Krisiun, Souls Demise, and Diamond Plate also play.
— Trevor Fisher
Click here to download Destruction’s “Cracked Brain.”
Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly
