ALBUM OF THE DAY: DEATHCHAIN’S DEATHRASH ASSAULT
Personally, I love Spotify, because it has allowed me to find a bunch of bands I’d never heard of. I mean yeah, like most other sources, you have to sift through a bunch of crap to actually discover something worthwhile. But when you do, why, you can spend the rest of your day listening to a delightful mix of thrash and death metal.
That’s where Deathchain come in.
Deathchain are a Finnish band from Kuopio, and their second album, 2005’s Deathrash Assault, has been on pretty heavy rotation for me. While doing my research like the dedicated person I am, it turns out they had another album out just last year, Death Gods. Weird. Haven’t listened to it yet, so I’m still going to focus on Deathrash Assault, because it’s the one that stood out to me. I had to do a little of the aforementioned sifting with their other stuff, truth be told.
This is that special kind of band that has to write their metal genre of choice as the first word to every album title. The exception is their 2003 debut, Deadmeat Disciples, but they seem to have realized their mistake and remedied it with the following four albums. Deathrash Assault is just fast, shit-kicking thrash with the occasional death growl and song titles to thrill any fourteen-year-old boy. (And apparently me.) “Napalm Satan,” and “Panzer Holocaust?” Come on now, you want to give it a listen. Another excellently-titled tune, “Graveyard Witchery,” is probably the album highlight, thanks to its blistering speed and barked-out chorus.
I also enjoy that the band also seems to have a sense of humor. On “Deathrash Legions,” they count the ten commandments of thrash, which are basically just the titles of famous thrash songs, like “Reign in Blood.” “Legions” gets stuck in my head a lot too, so there’s that.
I might write about glam, enjoy black metal, and tolerate djent, but then comes Deathchain and reminds me there’s nothing like the (sausage-fest) joy of thrash. Could’ve done without Spotify’s ad for Taylor Swift sandwiched between “Morbid Mayhem” and “Valley of the Corpses,” though.
-LF
