Defragments of Insanity

I usually don't pay much attention to press releases when I get a promo to avoid any "super-duper-best-album-ever" comments to subconsciously influence whatever I might write in the review. So, I've been listening to this album for a while now and it's not until now that I found out that it is a rerecording of Necrodeath's second album, Fragments of Insanity, from 1989 (I do not own that album). So, this is not a new album, but if you've never heard the original, this is a way to hear it with the current lineup.

It looks like these guys have been kicking ass for over 30 years now because this stuff is just as addictive and infectious as their later albums, which are all damn nice slabs of blackened thrash and/or death metal (depends on the album, really). Here things are really more on the thrash side of the fence, with a bit of early death metal mixed in. Don't let that turn you off if you're looking for extreme because this is fast, heavy and savage death/thrash that wipes its butt with the more mainstream thrash bands that were operating at the time. The vocals are thrashy but borderline black rasps, spitting out venom and killing everything in sight. The guitar work just calls for massive air-guitaring throughout the album; razor-sharp stuff with heaviness to boot, and lots of catchy riffs that stick in your head. Crown that with equally fast and heavy drums and tie it all up with a gift for malevolent melodies that moves this into pure thrashing evil territory.

I have no idea what the original version of this sounds like, but Defragments of Insanity sounds like the insanely good extreme forms of thrash that Necrodeath have been creating at least in the past 20 years or so.