Album Reviews : Desecrator – Live Til Death

With bands like Havok, Municipal Waste, Warbringer and Evile producing the new wave of thrash metal, most people are saying that thrash is back. But when it comes to Melbourne’s Desecrator, they say that thrash is dead and they are it’s fucking tombstone. After a long 6 months touring with brothers In Malice’s Wake, Bay Area thrashers Forbidden and soon to be playing a show with Australian thrash legends Mortal Sin, the rivotheads from Melbourne have dropped their debut album Live til Death. I was introduced to their 2010 EP by In Malice’s Wake themselves after a purchase of their albums, and after hearing that I was easily convinced to buy Live til Death when it was released.

I thought it was pretty unusual for a band to make their debut album a live one. It’s something I’ve never heard before, but I still think it’s pretty cool. The 8 song set was recorded at a closing down show for one of Melbourne’s most iconic venues The Arthouse, then mixed and mastered at The Music Lab (Berlin, Germany) by world renowned thrash producer Harris Johns. High Voltage Records are releasing 666 hand-numbered copies of the album (I have #189), and I am unsure if there’ll be more copies of the album made.

The opening track “Till Death” opens with straightforward metal riffs that you can’t help but to bang your head to after every listen. No spooky sound clip as most bands use as their intro these days, just straight into a no-bullshit thrash intro to get the crowd moving. The song speeds up after a minute, and you can instantly tell they’ve got the old-school thrash sound going.

It’s hard to decide which song is the most intense of the whole album, as every song is fast flat out thrash metal. But if I had to pick, it’d be “Bred, Fed, Then Dead!” or “Slaughtered in Masses”. Whether it’s down low or cranked to 11, both songs never fail to fire me up with energy whenever playing. “Serpent’s Return” is fast throughout nearly the whole song with nearly a minute and a half of shredding nearing the end! That song is a definite head banger with the rest on the album, and is also a little more technical than the other tracks.

Everything in the mix sounds MASSIVE, but the ferocious drumming and vocals in particular bring the intensity level beyond the fucking limit. The D-tuned rivotheads have worked so hard since they formed in 2010 to be one of the most bone-crushing thrash metal bands to come out of Australia today. I believe Desecrator will make it big soon; they just need more tunes as well as a proper studio album under their studded belts. 9/10

Band: Desecrator
Album: Live Til Death
Year: 2011
Genre: Thrash
Label: High Voltage Records
Origin: Melbourne, Australia
www.desecrator.com.au

Tracklisting
1. Til Death
2. 1800 Volts
3. Bred, Fed, Then Dead! [Reviewers Choice]
4. Little Jimmy Black
5. Slaughtered in Masses [Reviewers Choice]
6. Serpent’s Return
7. Rotten Christ
8. Destroying God’s Work