By DJ Monk
Since their formation in 2015, Hanover hammerheads Surgical Strike have prided themselves on playing “uncompromising and beer-soaked” thrash of the style developed the mid-Nineties, and there seems absolutely no reason for them to change the formula as they enter a new decade, with this debut full-length album, the latest exemplar of the genre they expound.
‘Part Of A Sick World’ does exactly what it sets out to do, and that is cement the band’s reputation as one of the new breed of Teutonic thrash heads, logical successors to likes of Kreator and Sodom in helping to take the genre forward. Perhaps bearing more than a passing resemblance to Bay Area overlords such as Overkill and Exodus, especially on the likes of ‘Failed State’ and ‘Below Zero’, than their fellow countrymen, Jens Albert and his crüe do indeed strike with surgical precision when it comes to laying down thrashtastic riffs.
The rhythm section of Moritz Menke and Florian Seybecke is tight as fuck, holding down the bottom end with a laconic alacrity that belies the fact that this mob are relative newcomers to the game. The twin guitars of Marcelo Vasquez Rocha and Frank Ruhnke twist and coil around each other like conjoined serpents, inseparable in their impact but also unique in their individual sounds, simultaneously firing off some spellbinding solos (made all the more impressive by their collective brevity), while Albert himself is the archetypal thrash vocalist: acidic, spitting his lyrics from the speakers with venomous intent, yet easing back at just the right moment.
Last year was a hugely beneficial one for the thrash genre, proving that it was very much re-invigorated and back on the attack. If ‘Part Of A Sick World’ is an indication of what is to come in 2020, then it is only going to go from strength to strength, especially if the new breed of proponents have anything to say about the issue…
- ‘Part Of A Sick World’ is released on 24 January. You can get your copy HERE.
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