Thunderwar (Pol) - The Birth of Thunder Digipak CD
Taken from wormgearzine.com
A breath of fetid fresh air, Thunderwar’s self-released The Birth of Thunder slaps you across your jaded metal head with death metal-by-way-of catchy, quasi-melodic thrash (without the shorts-wearing silliness). Taking cues mainly from Vader, Unleashed, and – what’s this? Yes, a little bit of Rust In Peace Megadeth – this Polish four pack bring van Drunen-barking atop femur-slicing, razor-sharp riffage that recalls speed metal with class, without coming across as retro or ironic, suffused as their music is with enough death metal blasting and hammering to leave the knobs pushed up to 11 for the whole twenty minutes or so it will take you to listen to this EP’s four songs. I hear Extreme Aggression-era energy amongst the riffmeister influences of their aforementioned influences, all combed-over with that clean American Thrash picking and soloing technique, all bloodlined with that Euro-Death moldy intensity. Even when things quiet down briefly during the acoustic title track, double-bass drumwork and eerie synths fill the eardrums with the unmistakable sound of unholy death. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard someone death-growl ‘Eagle of Glory!’ What vocalist/bassist Kamil “Madness” Mandes is talking about on this track and why said bird graces the cover I have no idea, but he’s full of piss and vinegar, and thus inspired, I would gladly pick up my metaphorical blade and join him on the field of thrash/death devastation.
As we all tend to be after the gift-giving-getting holiday, my pockets are filled with holes, but man, I have to have this. Leave it to Poland to desecrate the coffin of the once-godly-now-petrified thrash masters, intent upon raising the undead with the unbridled hate of their death-music-obsessed offspring. Well fucking done. -Jim
