He is back and lots of fans will be pleased. Not that the albums with Rob Dukes
were bad, no not at all, but most of the fans like the albums with Steve Souza
best. After Paul Baloff left the band Steve entered and they recorded 'Pleasures
of the Flesh', still one of the best Exodus albums and after that more albums
followed and in 1993 Steve left the band, but joined the band again in 2003 to
record one of the highlights of Exodus named 'Tempo of the Damned'. This was
just a short return and he left the band again in 2004. Over the last 10 years
he recorded albums with Dublin Death Patrol, Tenet and over the last 2 years two
albums with Hatriot. In June this year Rob Dukes got fired and surprise, surprise Steve
Zetro returned on the Exodus nest.
With most of the songs already written the band started to record the new album
immediately. After an electronic sounding intro, the first song immediately
shows that the band means war again. This time the band has written some very
straight forward and aggressive thrash metal songs and a lot less progressive than on
both 'Exhibit 'albums. It sounds rather old school Exodus, reminding of 'Pleasures
of the Flesh' and 'Fabulous Disaster' combined with fast tempi of the
'Tempo of the Damned' period. The sound of the album is very HEAVY, especially
the bass lines are rather in front and give the music a very dark and heavy
undertone. On top of that the mighty guitar riffs, sometimes reminding a bit of
Slayer, but that isn't strange if you know that Gary Holt is responsable for
that. Steve sings like Steve and that makes the album very recognizable. With
his aggressive biting singing style he makes the difference and sees to it that
Exodus is top of the bill if you talk about thrash metal. For young thrash bands it
will be almost impossible to write such a good album with songs that stick from
start to finish and with such aggressive vocals. Another real highlight are the
bass lines of Jack Gibson, check them out!
Andy Sneap is responsible for the production and gave it a clear modern heavy
sound. The typical Exodus galloping style and the melodic riffs and soli of
tandem Holt/Altus make you want to bang and create a massive pit in every song. In
general thrash metal albums are rather short, but Exodus created over one hour of fine
thrash metal that doesn't bore you for a second. There have been a lot of new thrash
albums this year and a lot of good ones, but this is the best one so far and I
doubt if there will be one in the months to come that can beat this.
If you need a lesson in violence, that strikes like a
beast and is more dangerous than a piranha leading you
in a tempo of the damned toxic waltzing
through Cajun Hell, waiting for a fabulous
disaster and an act of defiance producing an
overdose of a shroud of urine.....????? (Is
this a sentence that does make any sense???), buy this metal command.
