Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Eruption
Label: Self-released
Released: 2007
Bay Area in the Dolina šentflorjanska! Thrash metal from Goričko to Piran, as if Kreslin were mumbling it. Wherever the road winds, at every stop (thrash in every Slovenian village!) you can run into excellent thrash metal. Listing the local thrash metal bands here would be pointless anyway, since there are too many and they’re simply too good, so we’ll stop for a beer with the young Ljubljana thrashers Eruption. While they’re whipping out thrash Attila-style and conquering Slovenian stages without compromise, most recently with the successful Melting Your Brain tour, their first demo, released a few months ago, is maturing with age like a good wine.
The demo delivers four hard-hitting thrash tracks that send you straight back to the golden eighties of thrash metal and its cradle, the cult Bay Area scene. Thrash metal has always been mostly about riffs, and Eruption don’t lag behind in that department at all. A good riff is more the exception than the rule around here, but Eruption manage it with the very first riff of the opener Prayers, Betrayers, throwing the listener into unrestrained headbanging and helicopter-style hair whipping. Waves of devastating riffs are scattered across all twenty minutes of the demo, and the phenomenal guitar duo of Tim/Matic fires them off in bursts like it’s nothing, and on top of that they know how to properly kick your ass with outstanding, classic thrash solos. The double solos come one after another like on an assembly line, yet these are well-thought-out, crafted parts, as the neoclassical intro to Democracy and the other fantastic melodic passages nicely prove. The rhythm section is very solid: Borut on drums provides an excellent foundation and shows off a colorful palette of transitions, while Juš, with great bass lines, proves that the bass guitar can be heard in thrash metal too. Soaring over this fantastic instrumental lineup is Buco’s outstanding vocal. Even though it’s not a technically perfect, trained voice, you’ll hardly find a better vocalist in thrash. In that regard Buco recalls the legendary Paul Baloff (Exodus), and I’d bet Baloff is headbanging with delight to thrash this good, wherever he is. Buco coaxes incredible screams out of inhuman vocal cords, he’s very good in the mid-range, and he shines when calling down demons with a raw, more brutal thrasher’s “growl”. The twenty minutes of the demo spin by too fast, since the guys mostly race along at supersonic speed, but they also know exactly where to put the traditional thrash breaks and stop-starts. The production of the demo is solid, even excellent for a homegrown production, the instruments are clear and well audible, the vocal could be a bit louder, but the production adds charm and a whiff of old school to the demo, even though Eruption took only the best from their legendary thrash role models and it’s by no means a copy of “eighties” thrash metal.
Slovenian metal no longer lags behind foreign scenes in any way, and Eruption are right now one of the best and most promising Slovenian bands. I hope we won’t have to wait for their full-length as long as we did for Negligence. But still, Options of a Trapped Mind was worth the wait, and so will Eruption be! Mother, give me thrash! Mother, give me Eruption!
Lineup
Klemen – vocals
Tim – guitar
Matic – guitar
Juš – bass
Borut – drums
Production
Eruption
Tracklist
1. Prayers, Betrayers
2. Democracy
3. Monumental Mind
4. The Sands of Time
