Artist: Exodus
Label: Nuclear Blast
Released: 2004
Exactly two years after their singer Paul Baloff tragically passed away (02.02.2002), the thrash metal legends are releasing the album “Tempo Of The Damned”. Steve “Zetro” Souza is back with the band. People can say what they like, but in the nineties Exodus didn’t cough up anything good, and only partly redeemed themselves with the 1997 “live” album. With this record, after seven years of abstinence, the band came back proud and standing tall. “Tempo Of The Damned” is the album that should have been the definitive successor to “Fabulous Disaster” (1989). So the resurrected Exodus are retro, they’re the new eighties, and they’re “Bonded In Blood” (1985) all over again. Raw thrash in the best possible shape, honestly balls-to-the-wall dishing out “slaps” and chewing ears off the way Mike Tyson once did in his rage in the middle of a boxing ring. No mercy here, no compromise, in a word this is a pure thrash metal cannonade from the start of the record to the end. This is a record that gives you hope and proves the real good old thrash is still alive, and oh, ah, eh, uh,….how this thing burns!!!
Ten bombs of pure napalm!!! The engines roar cathartically, the burning riff kicks in and the band buries the listener in rage, aggression, malice, the terror of horror. There’s no room for handing out carnations here, no room for daydreaming up in the clouds. It’s just cruel, hard reality, serving up sinners deep-fried in hell. There’s not a ray of light, not a shred of hope, everything is racing straight into the arms of naked devastation. Reality is Exodus’s focal point. Our reality is the reign of the vibrations of the dark side of total control.
Scar Spangled Banner, which is no anthemic sugar-coated filler, immediately signals that the guys would make a very interesting interview for the butcher of the present day, G.W. Bush. Exodus are among the rare US citizens who saw the real truth through the served-up lie, and they’re not afraid to say out loud what they feel and see. With their truth they stripped the US bare as easily as you peel a banana. Exodus roll like a tank, a steel monster leaving total devastation in its wake, and nothing stops it. Hell, what is Souza pulling out of himself in War Is My Shepherd (this song also came out in Europe on a single CD), in some lines he screams and growls right on the edge of vocals, as if he’d been lifted straight out of death metal. Exodus are proper psychos through the first three tracks.
It’s no shocking news that these guys are perfect instrumentalists who have pushed their expression into some hard-to-catch musical dimensions. Once again the band shines with fantastic communication and working chemistry, in the exits and entrances to the solos and in general in the tastefully spiced guitar transitions that breathe “at full blast” in excellent conversation with the variety of fantastic drum passages and the witty weaving-in of the double bass pedal. The drums carry incredible depth, the bass booms and grinds in an utterly metallic way, the guitars lay down massive, red-hot, cheeky and “dirty” riffs, not to say downright “perverse” ones. Then there’s Zetro, who sings the whole way through as if in a trance and knows no mercy whatsoever. His singing is completely immersed, the power of his acrobatics untamed. Damn me, but Throwing Down (the track where the guy is especially expressive with his antics) undoubtedly carries a stoner riff, and Souza sings some lines there in “clean” vocals. As for that, Culling The Herd isn’t entirely innocent either, since in the chorus the guitars warp the riffing in such a way that this track too offers a mild whiff of stoner metal.
That Exodus are deadly serious about the thrash metal resurrection is also proven by the excellent covers of three classics on the record. The first is their own Sealed With A Fist, while Impaler and Throwning Down were written for guitarist Gary Holt’s side band called Wardance, all rejuvenated and freshened up. These classic relics in a new outfit make for an excellent contrast with the freshly written material on the record.
The record ends the way it begins. Full speed with no limits! The title track is the perfect pick for the grand finale of this album, the heavyweight champ of thrash metal. Souza screams on it as if he were being dragged out of his skin alive, the guitars detonate at full force again, the bass pulses vividly from all sides. A high-voltage ending that always leaves you wanting more. The European version has a bonus track, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (orig. AC/DC). Wrapped in an “Exodus outfit,” it’s a real treat, because the guys breathed their own soul into it, which is generally the key ingredient and prerequisite for any cover to catch fire at all.
On this excellent comeback album the guys came up with a new coinage in their poetry, “cruci-fucked”, and I say this record is pure mayhem!!! “Tempo Of The Damned” is living proof that in this world, here and now, in this rotten, corrupted environment, there are still bands that put out an album you can wholeheartedly thank for all the brain damage it causes while you listen. Ah, Metallica has accidentally fallen between my teeth again (a loss for the metal scene that evidently can’t be accepted no matter what),…I hope they’ll finally learn something useful from the reawakened Exodus.
Line-up
Steve “Zetro” Souza – vocals
Gary Holt – guitar
Rick Hunolt – guitar
Jack Gibson – bass
Tom Hunting – drums
Production
Andy Sneap
Track list
1. Scar Spangled Banner
2. War Is My Shepherd
3. Blacklist
4. Shroud Of Urine
5. Forward March
6. Culling The Herd
7. Sealed With A Fist
8. Throwing Down
9. Impaler
10. Tempo Of The Damned
11. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap*
*…. DigiPak Bonus track
Running time: 58:38
