Has it really been three years since we last heard from Wraith? Maybe it has been for you, but not for me, their pesky next door neighbor from Chicago. Since the release of their last album, Undo the Chains, I’ve had the pleasure of catching these barbarians tear it up on the live stage, opening for such titans as Vio-Lence, Exciter, and Witchtrap, just to name a few. The last time I caught them, just a couple months ago alongside the miscreants in Vorlust, they played a couple songs off their then upcoming album, Fueled by Fear. Fast forward nearly 60 days later and I’m thrilled to finally present to you my thoughts on said album.
What’s perhaps most apparent on Fueled by Fear is Wraith’s shift towards a straightforward violent ’80s thrash sound, the blackened blasphemies of yesteryear becoming more subdued than on past releases. This isn’t to say they’re completely absent, especially on the back end of this album, but we’ll get to that later. For the most part, Fueled is a largely Slayer inspired affair, which is a move I saw coming on the last album with cuts like “Gatemaster” and “Bite Back”. This formula is further expanded upon with cuts like the opening title cut, “Horses and Hounds”, and “Truth Decay”, each boasting riffs and drumming with undeniable Reign in Blood DNA.
Fear not though, black metal legions! Wraith is not quick to forget you on this outing, peppering in just enough first wave nostalgia to make this a black/thrash release at its core. The fast n’ filthy black ‘n’ roll sleaze of “Ice Cold Bitch” and “Shattered Sorrow” would make Lemmy proud. Meanwhile, hellish headbangers like “Merchant of Death”, “Heathen’s Touch”, and “Vulture” further prove that Wraith has a better knack for the Toxic Holocaust sound than Joel Grind himself has for quite some time (although I’d love to be proven wrong).
Last but not least is the punkish aggression that fuels this entire album. Wraith’s love for hardcore is nothing new. They even covered Misfits’ “Death Comes Ripping” on 2019’s Absolute Power, but I digress. Fueled by Fear is littered with notorious d-beats, mosh pit breakdowns, and ignorant riffage bordering on hardcore meathead stupidity. This is especially apparent on cuts like “Code Red”, “Warlord”, and the closing “The Breaking Wheel”, all of them worthy candidates of the “blackened crossover” terminology I coined when reviewing the last album (think Power Trip in a brawl with the aforementioned Toxic Holocaust).
Fueled by Fear is a surefire example of growth and maturation, yet without completely deviating from Wraith’s core ethos and identity. At the end of the day, blackened or not, it’s still a flat out thrashing affair that’s guaranteed to brutalize you from start to finish, all the while maintaining its identity and without coming off as a cheesy copy/paste throwback. Needless to say, I look forward to hearing how these songs translate live on the band’s upcoming cross country jaunt with Midnight and Exciter. My body might be spent even before those Canadian “Heavy Metal Maniacs” take the stage!
7 out of 10
Label: Prosthetic Records
Genre: Black/Thrash Metal
For fans of: Toxic Holocaust, Slayer, Power Trip