When I stumbled upon Abnormal Attachments, the long awaited sophomore album from Benefactor Decease, there was something about its radioactive green band logo and Ed Repka-esque cover art that triggered a part of my brain largely dormant since my high school days. See, unlike the other dorks roughly my age who abandoned thrash for the sophisticated stylings of hipster death metal and other Decibel sanctioned fare, I never stopped spinning my old Whiplash and Onslaught albums. These days, however, that “Posers must die!” ideology that once consumed my core has since been replaced with indigestion. So when the initial gut reaction upon viewing the cover of Abnormal Attachments didn’t involve reaching for a buttle of Tums, I was intrigued.
Upon further investigation, it turns out Benefactor Decease have been thrashing it up for quite some time. The Hellenic thrash squad first formed in 2007, before splitting a few years later in 2012. They’d then regroup in 2012, and have been going strong ever since…that is if your definition of “going strong” involves a decade in between records. I’m not sure what this band has been doing in the 10 years since their 2015 debut, Anatomy of an Angel, but I guess as the old saying goes, better late than never, because the time has come for album #2, Abnormal Attachments, to wreak havoc on sound systems worldwide.
Benefactor Decease’s brand of thrash metal lies somewhere between primal ’80s death/thrash à la Kreator and Dark Angel and schizophrenic tech thrash in the vein of Sadus, Coroner, and, well, also Dark Angel, with a strong emphasis on the latter. Much like Dark Angel in their headier, technical days, a major obstacle this album faces, or rather the songs themselves, is they occasionally come off as too big for their britches. There’s no denying the inherent virtuosity and dizzying theatrics of cuts like “Imprisonment Atrocities”, “Acid Stalker”, and “Technophobic Syndrome”, but what they boast in razzle dazzle, they lack in memorable hooks. The switchovers are a little too spastic for their own good, making the front half of this album a tad convoluted for even a self-admitted prog/tech nerd like myself.
The band are at their strongest when unleashing straight forward brutal thrash bangers, and while it isn’t often throughout the course of Abnormal Attachments, when they do so, boy do they stick. The one-two punch of “Gospel of the Antichrist” and “Violent Reprisal” immediately come to mind. “Gospel” sees the band dial down the tech intricacies to deliver some punishing death/thrash straight out of ’86, going for the throat with hateful riffing and blinding speed. “Violent Reprisal” expands upon this formula, sounding like a long lost descendent of Pleasure to Kill era Kreator. I must hand it to “Urban Decay” as well, which is also more straightforward in comparison to Abnormal Attachments‘ front half.
To make it abundantly clear, despite the cohesion of the songs themselves, there is a lot to rave about when it comes to Abnormal Attachments. Besides the impeccable musicianship, the production is blatantly old school and the atmosphere is rife with dense paranoia, matching the lyrics which tackle everything from mental illness to technological takeover. While it might not be the most compelling thrash album you’ll hear this year, it’s certainly worth your while if you prefer your thrash on the heady and spastic side.
6 out of 10
Label: Xtreem Music
Genre: Technical Thrash Metal
For fans of: Sadus, Coroner, Dark Angel