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Live Reviews : Destruction, Killrazer & Lethal Vendetta @ Manning Bar, Sydney 28/04/2018

By on April 29, 2018

Image: Mick Goddard
Words: Jake Wiffen

Fucking Destruction!! Fuuuucking Destruction!! Fuuuuuuck!!! This old bastard ain’t seen these German thrash masters since their 20 year anniversary at Wacken Open Air back in 2007, so to say I’m pumped for this show is a massive understatement.

Sydney’s own Lethal Vendetta stride out onstage to kick this gig off. Running on the release of their Debut album “No Prisoners, No Mercy” these lads certainly know their thrash. Packing a handful of tunes that hark back to early Testament and Annihilator and a singer with a set of pipes that would impress Chuck Billy himself. Stand out tunes were “Salute to the Gods” and their finisher “No Prisoners, No Mercy”.

For once the sound guy does his job, he doesn’t seem hell-bent on fucking the opening bands. Next up is one of Sydney’s thrash pillars
Killrazer. These blokes would be right at home on tour with Slayer back in ’85. Blasting through a brutal stack of tunes like “Salt in the Wounds” and “Legions” and a few new songs to keep the Sydney crowd pumping their fists I can already feel the room starting to fill up with beer drinking thrash maniacs when The band lay down their last track “The Burial Begins”.

The place empties between bands so everyone can suck down a few lukewarm beers and drive as many Winnie blues into their lungs as the time will permit before Destruction take the stage.

Searchlights tear through the air as an ominous classical guitar piece pours out of the speakers sending the denim-clad thrash crowd shuffling to the front in anticipation. 20 seconds into “Curse the Gods” and the pit begins. Destruction has mastered their live set, it’s everything a red-blooded beer drinking maniac wants. No fucking around, no room for air, just face-melting thrash metal. The set is loaded with classics, purposefully sewn together to keep the circle pit relentlessly going. At the end of “Ritual/Eternal”, the bass amp gives up the ghost. Marcel has a laugh with the crowd and dishes out a few beers to those close enough to clutch ’em as the stage tech frantically tries to fix the bass rig while also serving beers to Marcel on command.

Randy Black, seeing no fix in clear sight, tears into a drum solo that keeps the energy up while the technical difficulties are overcome. Quite fittingly the band storm the stage once the amp is back online with “Total Disaster”. They dig up “Black Mass” from their first album which Marcel tells us they ain’t played live since they toured with Slayer back in ’83.

“The Butcher Strikes Back” drags me straight back to Wacken Open Air in 2007 where a huge bloke in a butchers apron brandishing a chainsaw covered in blood stalked the stage in front of some 80,000 people…. the Manning Bar is, to put it politely a long fucking way from that and the room sadly is a long way from full but fuck, that’s Australia for you. The band are in fine form and make sure every single person there is pumping their fist and banging their head.

Destruction sends us all shuffling off into the night with one last serenade of “Bestial Invasion” and there’s not an unhappy punter among us.

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