Roadrunner Classix Revisited: Realm

From jump street, Realm’s 1988 debut album Endless War comes galloping out of your speakers like the Four Horsemen of some alternative, leather-clad Apocalypse, grabbing your ears and smacking your pointy lil’ head against the pavement until you give up your lunch money. That’s lofty praise, to be sure, but from the opening chords of the album’s title track ‘til the final musical explosion that Realm titled “Poisoned Minds,” Endless War is a high-octane kick-in-the-groin with the dreaded steel-toed work boot (size 12, I think). Part of the MVD Audio reissue series of classic Roadrunner Records titles from the golden age of heavy metal, Endless Realm kicks serious ass in every way that you could imagine (967 if you’re actually counting).

Roaring out of the unlikely environs of Massachusetts, Wisconsin Realm took the early-80s thrash-metal revolution that had already infected the West Coast seriously. More so, these jugheads took it PERSONALLY as well, figuring, I guess, that they could tear down buildings and deflower virginal young maidens as well as Hetfield, Mustaine or the assorted (sordid?) mopes from Testament, or maybe even better. Fey Cali metalheads aside, Realm was formed in 1985 by vocalist Mark Antoni, guitarists Takis Kinis and Paul Laganowski, bassist Steve Post and drummer Mike Olson. After circulating a couple of demo tapes around the growing metal tape-trading underground, and selling a few thousand copies out of their collective car trunks and by mail order (back in the pre-web daze), Realm signed to the young Roadrunner Records label in 1988.

With Endless War, the Realm guys figured that they had built a better metal mousetrap, and I’d have to agree with them (and not only ‘cause they’re currently holding my dog Mugsy hostage…you’ll be home soon boy, I promise!). In Mark Antoni, Realm had an unusually talented vocalist (for a thrash band, that is), an old-school warbler that soared rather than growled, hitting the notes high and low like Dickinson from Iron Maiden or Savatage’s Jon Oliva. Antoni struts and swaggers through the mix like some sort of spotlight-clad Greek deity while the rest of the band knocks down the riffs and rhythms with reckless glee.

Here’s the other unusual thing about Realm – even a casual listen to Endless War displays technical chops more akin to contemporary prog-metal outfits than twenty-year-old thrash-metal bands. The guys in Realm, particularly guitarists Laganowski and Kinis, bring a big dose of melodic technicality to the music, refusing to trade skills for power and vice versa. There are a lot of progressive elements in Realm’s sound, from the intricate guitar interplay to the careful rhythmic construction. Drummer Olson can blister the skins with the best of ‘em, but he can also follow Post’s rhythmic lead and deliver subtle flourishes that fill out the band’s sound nicely.

It all comes down to the songs though, don’t it, which in the case of Realm’s Endless War, are a breathless mix of traditional metal construct, futuristic flights of fancy (a la Voivod), classic thrash-and-speed-metal elements (think early Metallica or Megadeth) and an undeniable progressive undercurrent (Uriah Heep, Rush). Lyrically, with words mostly penned by guitarist Kinis, Realm follows an artistic path similar to heavy metal colleagues like Nuclear Assault, Riot or Intruder, mixing socially-conscious story-songs with fantasy-influenced wordplay.

It’s the sheer sonic power of the material on Endless War that keeps Realm in high favor among metal collectors, though, from the unrelenting search-and-destroy mission that is “All Heads Will Turn To The Hunt” to the gentle-like-a-sledgehammer Zeppisms of “Root Of Evil” or the soul-crushing, eardrum-busting, liver-shaking sturm und drang of “Poisoned Minds.” To further turn the world on its head, Realm dared to deliver a red hot cover of the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby,” reinventing the classic rock chestnut in a way that not even John Lennon’s mother would recognize.

In the long run, Realm didn’t have the spark in ‘em to carry on much further than Endless War. They released an appropriately vicious follow-up, Suiciety, in 1990, which has also been reissued by MVD Audio with the entire luxury package, and the band reportedly recorded an unreleased third album a couple of years later. As I’ve told you all before, however, the early-90s proved to be a sodden bloody killing floor for all things metal, and it wasn’t until later in the decade when boy bands suddenly ruled the earth that shaggy-headed teenaged miscreants (much like the Reverend when he was a young Neanderthal) went looking for more meaningful musical experiences, finding Realm’s fine pair of albums in the process.

Regardless of your tastes in metal (I like mine barbequed, personally), if you still get shivers at the sound of clashing guitars and are drawn to rampaging drumbeats like a fleabitten hound at the sound of a dog whistle, you owe it to yourself to dig up a copy of Realm’s Endless War. Provided a proper reissuing with scalpel-sharp 24-bit remastering, a high-quality shiny gold disc, original art, an attractive booklet with lots of words and song lyrics (and liner notes from guitarist Takis Kinis) in a limited edition of 2k, you’d better find your copy today. The Reverend doth decree it!

(Click on the CD cover to buy Endless War from Amazon.com)

Roadrunner Classix Revisited: Xentrix

Back in February, I wrote about MVD Audio, the CD end of the Music Video Distributors empire, coming to an agreement with Roadrunner Records to reissue nearly two dozen of the label’s classic ‘80s metal titles in grand new limited editions on gold discs with original cover art, liner notes, lyrics and everything – hell, you can read all about it over at our sister blog, Ryan Adams Sucks. Having received a number of these groovy reissue discs from the good folks at MVD, and after listening to them repeatedly over the past couple of months (between my stories on teevee and, well, that job thing), now it’s time to write a few words about these mutts.

UK thrashmasters Xentrix (pronounced “Zen Tricks” for you Hooked On Phonics™ types), unremarkably, began life as a garden-variety Metallica cover band known about town as Sweet Vengeance. That they chose to channel Metallic is not surprising, really – British bands struggled during the late-80s to define their own particular brand of thrash-and-speed-metal chops and many of ‘em sounded like Lars and crew. By the time of the band’s signing with the fledgling Roadrunner label in 1988, based on the strength of their four-song demo tape, the band had changed its name to Xentrix and had already begun to develop its own voice.

Released in 1989, Shattered Existence is one raucous mother of a debut disc. The band kicks the amps up to “11” before declaring “No Compromise,” and then they kept the damn tape rolling long past the point where their collective ears began to bleed. “Dark Enemy” offers up a literal human sacrifice in the form of guitarist Kristian Havard’s hands – surely he lost them after performing the song’s caustic fretboard runs, while “Bad Blood” expanded the band’s musical palette, displaying melodic elements alongside machine-gun drumming, courtesy of the bombastic Dennis Gasser. Vocalist/guitarist and band founder Chris Astley is a capable frontman, his vox sounding like the same shade of gray as James Hetfield’s, snapping and growling like a rabid pup above the razor-sharp mix. The rest of Shattered Existence mines similar thrash/speed-metal turf, alternating between Iommi-inspired heavy riffing and lightning-fast, virtually blinding lead runs.

This MVD reissue of Shattered Existence tacks on three songs from the band’s ill-fated (but energetic) 1990 Ghostbusters EP. The three-song vinyl was released as a stopgap to satisfy new Xentrix’s fans until the release of the For Whose Advantage? album later that year. The band’s inspired cover of Ray Parker Jr’s movie theme song was met with threats of a legal smackdown, however, and the label was forced to recall the EP from the stores. The episode set Xentrix back a bit, but they regrouped and released three more albums for Roadrunner with Astley at the helm, sadly experiencing diminishing returns with each one, proving that they had pretty much spent their creative allowance on Shattered Existence.

Met with commercial indifference in a fluctuating market that had begun to favor grunge bands and vacuous pop, Xentrix dropped its founding frontman and released one last album, 1996’s Scourge, with a new singer and guitarist before disappearing off the heavy metal map. Shattered Existence remains as a classic example of ‘80s-era thrash-metal, however, a solid collection of songs with performances that transcended the musician’s combined skills. With old-school thrashers like Testament and Exodus still kicking the ball around and digging up new fans from beneath the blood-soaked sod of the music industry, Xentrix deserves another day in the sun....

(Click on the CD cover to buy Shattered Existence from Amazon.com)

Total Destruction Revisited

Destruction "Death Trap"
Destruction "Unconscious Ruins"
Destruction "Deposition (Your Heads Will Roll)"

Mostly notable ‘round these parts for a handful of mid-80s electroshock recordings sluiced out for a variety of low-budget thrash-n-bash record labels deemed insignificant by the majors, Teutonic thrashmasters Destruction are part of an unholy Germanic metal trinity that includes Sodom and Kreator as its other points of light. Although not as well known stateside as their Kraut-guzzling teammates, Destruction began the Reagan decade with much promise and ended it by not-so-gracefully self-destructing at the dawn of grunge, a self-fulfilling promise if there ever was one....

After numerous line-up changes revolving like some odd moon of Saturn around axemaster Mike Sifringer, the band’s “creative output” during the decade of the ‘90s was mostly ignored by all but the most thick-skulled of true believers, whilst everybody else listening to music had traded in their studded leather jackets for dirty flannel and heroin. Seeing the writing on the wall (and wanting to live long enough to collect enough green stamps to ensure some sort of retirement comfort), Sifringer invited beloved original Destruction vocalist Schmier back into the fold in time to celebrate the new millennium. Like much of Russian history, those discs made without the charismatic vocalist Schmier, wretched they may be, have been demoted in status and removed from the band’s “official discography.”

Since 2000, the “new,” improved Destruction has attempted to redeem themselves for previous roadbumps and potholes with firestarter albums like 2005’s Inventor Of Evil. The task has only been partially successful, but Thrash Anthems promises to kiss and make up with the smallish legion of former fans still unconvinced of the band’s sincerity. The premise is simple, as Testament proved a couple of years back – venture barefoot into the nearest studio and re-record your classic old sides with a modern edge, etc, just to prove how ultra-groovy you were back in the day.

In the case of Thrash Anthems, the hocus-pocus works. Afforded a recording budget larger than a breadbox but smaller than a Volvo, Destruction proceeds to kick the living crap out of these thrash antiquities. The album delivers the real goods: high-decibel buzzsaw schadenfreude that wears its world-weary misanthropy on its sleeve while reveling in its suicidal worldview. That many of these tunes were originally scribbled on the back of boulders back when the mastodons died is irrelevant – shorn of their lo-fi roots, crunchy cuts like “Death Trap,” “Mad Butcher” and “Curse The Gods” flex plenty of muscle.

Never the most subtle of hog-farmers to rise up from the metal underground, Destruction nevertheless had better chops than most, guitarslinger Sifringer toasting the tones with the best of the whole stinking lot of ‘em, even throwing in a little wiry Spanish dancer classical riffing into the intro of the epic “Unconscious Ruins.” Vocalist Schmier gargles with battery acid and Lemon Pledge to better slur his Germanic approximation of the English language while drummer Marc Reign just does his best to slag out a wall-of-bombast behind his energetic bandmates.

If the idea of a dino-thrash band revisiting its back catalog doesn’t capture your imagination the same way as, say, a teenage Russian gymnast might, the fines folks of Destruction throw a bone towards modern marketing technique by starting and finishing Thrash Anthems with new recordings that sound remarkably similar to their old recordings, i.e. all balls and black leather flash. Much like an over-the-hill ballplayer mainlining chemicals that would send a lab rat into fits of manic depression, Destruction continues to peel the plaster from the studio walls with the band’s own individual blend of harder-louder-faster-thrash-metal and blustery, hard-chromed charm. Turn it up! (Candlelight Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Thrash Anthems from Amazon.com)