All righ then...
100
Title: Bonded by Blood
Artist: Exodus
Nationality: American
Year: 1985
Sub-genre: Thrash metal
Familiarity: I’ve heard this before but a long time ago. It’s the only album I’ve heard by Exodus.
Listens: 4
Track-by-track
“Bonded by Blood”
Leaving aside my distaste of the way Paul Baloff sings (see "comments" below), there’s a great buildup here as something like a train or a truck heading your way comes out of the speakers, and you definitely get the feeling of something bearing down on you. The guitars blast out and we’re off. This, ladies and gentlemen, is thrash metal done right, and it’s hard to believe this is now nearly forty years old! Powerful shredding, punk-style shouts, uncompromising vocal, these guys take no prisoners. It’s fast, it’s loud and it’s glorious. It’s down and dirty, it’s simple and it ain’t pretty, but that’s thrash metal for you.
“Exodus”
Interesting to have the title track followed by what you could call the signature track, the name of the band itself. There’s a slight easing on the accelerator (though not much) and those big shouts again giving the thing a real raw edge. The drumming on this is manic, makes Nicko sound sedate. Another excellent solo that either Gary Holt or Rick Hunolt just fires off all over the place and could easily be on an album recorded ten, or even twenty years later. Would not sound at all out of place. In fact, it’s when Baloff isn’t screeching that I can best appreciate this band for what they are.
“And Then There Were None”
More of a chugging style to the guitar here; rather than burning the frets, Holt and/or Hunolt smoulder, and there are even some Iron Maiden-style “Whoa-oh-oh”s. You can see what an influence this must have been on the emerging thrash scene in America and elsewhere. Even the vocal is slower here, kind of delivered in bursts, like stanzas of a poem, rather than in one fast stream-of-consciousness, as it were, as on the other two tracks. The riffs here are dark and evil, and grab your heart and balls in fingers both of ice and of fire. When the tempo jumps about halfway it’s a joy to hear. Almost boogieing along now, Holt and Hunolt in complete charge.
“A Lesson in Violence”
Ramping everything back up to ten and we’re rocketing off again, with a hook (in a thrash metal song? Better believe it) that gets hold of you and won’t let go, like a Rottweiler with its teeth sunk into your neck. The speed of that shredding is really hard to credit. Superb stuff. I think maybe both of them are soloing, taking turns? Not sure. All I am sure of is that, to quote Batty, it’s bitchin’. The slow descending kind of wail at the end is hilarious and works really well.
“Metal Command”
Thundering along from the off with a real face-melter; feel like I’m spitting nails and blood after only a few seconds! Great bridge with a totally hilarious screamed chorus that consists only of the title. Sure what else do you need? Solo might be the best I’ve heard on the album thus far. Love the echo at the end.
“Piranha”
Like the devil fish of the title, goes right in and strips the flesh away from you from the first riff, leaving you nothing but a rockin’ skeleton grooving to the tune. Guitars endlessly batter you over the head, drums roll over you like a freight train in a hurry, and all you can say is more, more, more! Sounds like some sort of vaguely Egyptian riff in there, maybe. More cool echo and some powerful shouts. For some odd reason the solo sounds off to me on this one, not sure why; kind of like it just starts in mid-riff or something. Meh. Still a great song.
“No Love”
Completely unexpected, a breath-taking display of how these guys can tone it right down, a vehicle for the two guitarists to show what they can do when they’re not shredding. Until, of course, they start to shred. And do they shred. Kind of get the impression of minstrels or hippies being kicked (or chainsawed) out of the way as the band plugs in and turns it up to ten. Yeah, that’s more like it.
“Deliver Us to Evil”
Oh clever: I see what they did there. Hold on tight, cos this one’s rocketing along on rails of mayhem and fiery power. Chugging guitar again and thundering drums, it’s kind of unstoppable. Like most of this album really.
“Strike of the Beast”
Another rip-roaring fretfest with no let-up as we reach the end of the album, Baloff screeching like someone has his balls in a vice. Feel kind of drained after that to be honest.
Comments: Right, nobody wants to hear this but do I care? Oh you wish. Anyway, I do not like the vocalist here. Paul Baloff screeches and screams, and not even in a way I can appreciate (use that word advisedly) with Black metal singers, where it’s almost an incomprehensible shriek. So let’s get this right, Trollheart: you hate(d) black metal and death metal vocalists because you couldn’t understand what they were singing, but now you’re dissing Exodus because you
can? No, not at all: I’m glad I can hear and understand what he’s singing, but the high-pitched, almost hysterical way Baloff has of singing sounds to me almost like Brian Connolly from The Sweet, but all the time. Anyway, that’s just one quibble I have about this band and it may very well be the only one.
Well, mostly it is, but I would sound one note of caution, in that while this album rocks like a good thing and certainly deserves its rep, you can’t say there’s much variety on it. I mean, yeah, it’s thrash metal so what ya gonna do, and as they say, thrash is as thrash does, but it makes it a little hard to find anything to write about it. Nevertheless, if you’re in the mood for thrash (and if not why not?) rack this up, crank it to ten and see how many neighbours you can count banging on the walls or at your door. Gotta get ‘em all!
Rating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eS-4iCjlWs