Whiplash are an American Thrash metal band formed in 1984 with Power and Pain, their debut album coming out in 1985. Immediately obvious (apart from the horrendous cover art) is the bands influences. This sounds like someone threw Venom and Slayer into a mixing pot together and this is the result.
This is pure 1980’s thrash. The riffs are blisteringly fast and the vocals sound a little like Chronos from Venom as well. From the outset of the first track “Stage Dive” this hits hard. It’s not as musically accomplished as Slayer and the songs aren’t as catchy as Venom, but they do thrash fuckin’ hard and this is enjoyable to listen to. They just don’t have the bigger more dynamic / memorable songs that the aforementioned bands did. I also wonder if the album cover hurt sales, as the band remained firmly in the underground, with only hardcore thrashers really knowing anything about the band.
Aside from cringe worthy album cover, the album sounds like mostly sped up Venom riffs. That’s not necesarily a bad thing but I think the band took it a bit too far. There are plenty of bands that wear their influences proudly but really every song seems to come across as Venom worship, which is shame as the band are clearly good enough at their instruments, to have put a little more time in to come up with something a little more original or at least use a more varied set of influences.
Criticism aside, I had a great time listening to this, its pure thrash metal, as thrash metal does. And once again the band re pretty good at it.
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