Strikeback - The Plague

With a gruff straightforwardness and no-nonsense (but also no surprises) approach to thrash metal, Strikeback deliver a rather middle-of-the-road thrash record with practically a guarantee of going by unnoticed. A relatively new modern thrash band, Strikeback have plenty of thing s going for them on The Plague: sufficient instrumental proficiency, clear production, and vocals eerily similar to those of Phil Anselmo on Pantera’s more well-known records. What they lack are a spark of originality and a fully convincing conveyance of that pissed off attitude that their name and thrash (usually) should imply. The attitude isn’t fully absent; it comes in spurts, but too often the album sounds merely amalgamated from thrash’s original sources. The Sodom/Kreator-esque riffs are there, but they’re arranged in such a way that they sound so transparently knocked off. Despite only being about 36 minutes, the album’s quick expending of ideas causes it to drag after just a few tracks. The more intensely grating vocal moments (and the impressive high notes on “Beyond the Pale”) do a bit to help snap the record back into focus, but it’s a struggle throughout the bulk of the album.

I admire the many bands keeping thrash relevant in this century and I surely appreciate Strikeback for their contribution, but to give them a participation trophy would benefit no one. The band’s pitfalls are readily apparent and the fields in which improvement is needed are clear. Fortunately, I think the band are capable of such improvement. Even if it isn’t always apparent, their fire on this album shows that if they play to their strengths they may have a real hard-punching thrash record in them. I’d love to see them flesh it out.