If I haven’t been posting as frequently on here as you’ve come used to, I’d like to apologize. A seasonal bug got the best of me last week and my 9 to 5 job (Yes, I somehow manage to balance this webzine on the side) has been keeping me more than busy as of late. Yet there are a handful of albums on my “new release calendar” that I’ve marked as “mandatory” for review. See, even if I’m not cranking out 2 or even 3 album reviews a day like I used to (How did I do it?), I can still promise you readers at least 500 words of varying quality regarding a new heavy release a day.
Today’s album in review is the second from Floridian thrashers Rhythm of Fear, entitled Fatal Horizons. This one was marked “mandatory” not so much because of my love of this band (I’ve always considered myself a casual fan at best despite seeing them live at least once in my teen years.), but because there isn’t much thrash these days that catches my attention for the right reasons. No, I’m not talking about “death/thrash” or “black/thrash”. I’m talking good ol’ fashioned, meat and potatoes thrash; the kind your hesher uncle used to get down to in the late 80s.
Rhythm of Fear specializes in exactly this, all but abandoning their early crossover roots (save for “Oath Made in Hell”). About half of Fatal Horizons can be described as a throwback to the late 80s/early 90s era of thrash, when brute force become secondary and bands doubled down on darker, slower, and dare I say more accessible riffing. I can’t help but be reminded of albums like Testament’s Souls of Black (1990) and Death Angel’s Act III (1990) when hearing cuts like “Obsolescence”, “Alien Synthesis”, and “Tears of Ecstasy”. It was an oddly specific era for thrash, the last gasp of commercial success before Seattle took charge in ’91, yet channeled here to a T.
When they aren’t sounding like second wave thrashers gone major label deal, Rhythm of Fear conjures some pretty gnarly late 80s Slayer worship, tapping into the vein of South of Heaven (1988) and Seasons in the Abyss (1990) with their balance of dark, doomy passages and straightaway thrash. From the crazed riffs and chaotic solos, to the chanted vocals and signature Lombardo beat holding it all down, the likes of “Parasomniac”, “Self Destructive Brain”, and “Simulated Times” fill the Slayer void in a post-Slayer world (2 years later and I can’t believe I’m typing that.) The selfish teenage thrasher in me would love to hear an entire album in this vein, but I’m sure RoF avoided such so not to be labelled “Slayer Jr.” or something of the likes by online metal journalists like yours truly. What can I say? I put the “moron” in oxymoron!
Fatal Horizons doesn’t break any new ground for thrash metal. It’s essentially what thrash would sound like today had the course not been drastically altered in the early 90s by the genre’s commercial doomsday and the further growth of death metal. I guess for that niche reason alone, I can appreciate this album’s worth. I can also appreciate that nearly every riff on here goes hard as all hell, and so should you. If you’re gonna be thrashing it up to anything this weekend, do so to the Rhythm of Fear!
7 out of 10
Label: MNRK Heavy
Genre: Thrash Metal
For fans of: Slayer, Testament, Death Angel