Much like Seinfeld, I believe a Jay-Z lyric can be applied to anything that happens in life. In this case, I quote one great line (of many) from ?99 Problems?; the lyric ?You know the type/ Loud as a motor bike/ But wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight? pretty much sums up the so-called thrash album, Killing Season, from Bay Area ?80s thrashers Death Angel. Sadly, this disc has lots of bark but very little bite. In addition to that, there is no thrash here. Death Angel attempts band rip-offs and samples many other genres on Killing Season, but none seem to resemble the scene they came from.
?The album hits its peak early, and by early, I mean the opening track. ?Lord of Hate? sounds like an Iced Earth outtake mixed with the clean guitar opening of Metallica?s ?Battery.? From there, Killing Season begins a steady descent into mediocrity and total disarray. The album plays out as if the band had ideas for 30 or 40 songs and just decided to juxtapose two or three in one song 11 different times.
?No song better exemplifies this than ?Carnival Justice.? The first minute sees the band trying to rip off Unearth. Then drummer Andy Galeon attempts to be Neil Peart for six seconds. From here, the band digresses into a bad impression of funky Meshuggah for seven seconds, then back to Unearth-esque hardcore, then Iron Maiden and finally caps this utter mess off with more Unearth. If the band had stayed with just two of the ideas here, then perhaps the song might have worked, but instead, the listener is left to try and sort out this atrocity.
?But not everything about this album is beyond terrible.
?The production, unfortunately, is fantastic; the guitars are incredibly beefy yet do not overtake the drums and bass. Speaking of which, Dennis Pepa?s bass work is phenomenal here, and Nick Raskulinecz?s production is some of the best that I have heard in years. The mix is full and packs a serious punch without the Jason Suecof-style hollow-sounding overdub-o-rama. Sadly, all of this is thoroughly wasted on Season.
?The other big waste is the number of great riffs here. ?The Noose,? ?Buried Alive,? ?Steal the Crown? and the aforementioned ?Lord? all have superb, memorable riffs. Too bad the songs they are attached to suck something awful. Riffs make ?Lord? and ?Steal,? but the songs don?t really amount to anything. Think of them as the musical equivalent of Michael Bay movies.
?At the end of this record, I am left wondering two things. First, why did Death Angel feel the need to record a new album? It is not like anyone was expecting them to make a (second) comeback, especially after their actual comeback record, 2004?s The Art of Dying, was the epitome of mediocrity. Second, I have to wonder if the band wrote these songs as a collective in any form. None of the songs hang together in any way, and it leaves the album sounding like five musicians each recording their own solo records.
?It?s just a shame, honestly. To have the same band that recorded such great ?80s thrash classics such as ?Thrashers? and ?Guilty of Innocence? record this piece of shit is unbearably depressing. I never thought I?d actually say this, but this is St. Anger bad.
?
11/2 stars out of 5
