Top 10 Thrash Metal Albums of 2024 #8 Bloodsucker - Forever Damned
Updated: Dec 10, 2024
Xmas is upon us ya filthy animals! Time to do a Top 10 Thrash Metal Albums of 2024 and see how the year has treated us. I'll pick sh!t that I've listened to... a lot! Might not be perfect in all aspects but I'll always, always go for that messy spark over disciplined tasteless polish. Let's go!
First album of the Netherlandian troupe gives you a proper atomic wedgie - after they've given you a beating and taken your monies. Thrash Metal with a dominating icing of Hardcore Punk, barking in the comfortable hole of Crossover.
Think of Cro-Mags... with polish
Forever Damned feels thought out as the songs are polymorphous: raw hulking married to very melodic and somehow almost delicate segments. Even if its this bands' first album the fellas ain't exactly green; there's a heritage playing here from the Netherland's Punk scene.
Close to 28 minutes falls into the typical haunt of the Punk spirit. This one is a simple snatch and grab job, no loitering.
Stemming themes from societal dead ends and stress of the individual the context seems appropriate to this day and age. Just take a look at the friggin' news - sh!t is broken and people breaking. The recent pandemic and wars are mere symptoms on the razor's edge we trudge blindfolded.
Sh!t is extremely topical
Song structures alternate appropriately as the songs know how to pipe down and give way to clearer melodies. However, everything has been mixed and mastered to sound too much alike. It feels like the songs of the album have zero dynamics in them - even the aforementioned delicatesse feels raw.
The band I feel has a lot of width that they decidedly held back here - this is punk, fool! However, that venue could've been explored an inch or two as the nine songs do come across as somewhat monotonous when listening this thing as an album.
Funny thing - that being said I don't think that the album has one song too many.
"Lights Out" is a good song to check what's what. It starts zany and settles into a nice frackas towards the end. "Feel the Misery" has a decided grunge vibe to it, whisking me back to the 90s with its switching of choruses, rough grinding and sweeter harmonics. "Subzero" draws from many sources too and displays fun theatrics from the vocalist Dietrik Grouwstra that pairs well with the compositional knack.
Let's be clear: I'm not whining for a breath for myself. Punk needs to be relentless and frantic. Here we clearly have some production prowess that has a vision of how the music should sound. The music itself needs a breath to a greater impact.
THRASH-O-METER
★★★☆☆ SONGWRITING
★★★★★ THEMES
★★☆☆☆ LONGEVITY
★★★☆☆ PRODUCTION
★★★★☆ THRASHABILITY
SCORE:
★★★☆☆ GOOD SH!T
(decimals are for weaklings)