No one can forget the fact that they’ve heard Reign In Blood. Or Ride The Lightning. Or Pleasure To Kill. None of these facts has stopped a thrash revival of sorts from happening over the last few years. Although it has admittedly wained a little now, there is still a steady stream of albums coming out that sounds as if they could’ve come straight from the 80s. Luckily, Noisem‘s Agony Defined (A389 Recordings) is one of the better ones.
Straight off the bat, Agony Defined gets positive marks for clocking in just shy of 26 minutes. In a genre which is now more interested in aping the old school than moving forwards (in fairness, where else can it go?) brevity is always going to play in an album’s favour. A solid, 26 minutes of thrashing riffs, peppered with “Slayer solos”. No nonsense here. It also helps that most of the songs on the record are good too. Although a lot of them do sound similar, songs like the incredibly short’ Desire And Disgust’ (1:17) manage to shred through riff after riff at a scarily fast pace, even allowing a brief moment for the bass to take centre stage.
The slower riff that heralds the beginning of ‘Mortuary’ makes a nice change of pace from the breakneck speed of the previous song, giving the record an injection of groove. Although speed is essential to thrash, it would be great to see Noisem slow it down a bit more often, as they clearly have the riff-writing chops, and it would be nice to be able to enjoy some of them for a bit longer. Moments like that riff where Slayer slows it down in ‘Angel Of Death’ are part of what makes the song so memorable, and such an enduring classic. Speed is important, but variation is nice too. Credit where credit is due though, the (proper) hardcore influenced chug, and subsequent slowdown on ‘Severed’ is great, as is the almost doomy moment on ‘Split From The Inside Out’, more of that please!
Thrash maniacs who like their music fast and violent should find plenty to love here. It’s refreshing to hear a thrash album in 2013 that isn’t trying to be funny, or ironic, or “party thrash”. A short, no nonsense album with good riffs is about as much as you can ask for from thrash these days, and Noisem deliver that in spades.
7/10
Tom Saunders