INTERCEPTOR — Thrashing Violence (review)

INTERCEPTOR — Thrashing Violence album cover

Demo · 2022 · Thrash Metal

4/5 · 2022-08-04
Vim Fuego

Landmarks in your life can bring on bouts of nostalgia (I’m writing this the day before my 50th birthday), and can get you reminiscing about things you enjoyed from the past missing from the current day. If you can be bothered doing the maths you’ll see I was 17 when the 80s ticked over to 1990. The small thrills from those days are often the hardest to rediscover - the wicked thrill associated with underage drinking (started age 14 when the legal drinking age was 20), the buzz of a first cigarette (age 15, and can genuinely say I enjoyed it), the forbidden treasure of naked women in slightly sticky girlie magazines (with pubic hair!), and the visceral delight of discovering a new band.

These days a quiet beer with dinner is still nice but is no longer illicit, I feel sick for a couple of days after if I smoke so that’s out, all forms of human nakedity and perversion are only a few mouse clicks away (and I’ve been living with a genuine, real-life beautiful woman for more than a quarter of a century anyway), and most new thrash metal bands sound like variations on a Municipal Waste-based template.

And then I discovered Interceptor’s “Thrashing Violence” demo, and I felt the thrill of 17 again.

“Thrashing Violence” is genuine, grass roots thrash metal, done for the fun of it by a young trio from a dead-end town. (That’s another thing about being 17 – whatever town you’re from seems like a dead-end town). The first thing that hits you with this demo is that it’s rough and raw, and gloriously under-produced. This isn’t the forced rough/raw pose of black metal deliberately trying to sound tr00 kvlt and grymdark. This is the genuine rough/raw of “OK, we don’t really know what we’re doing, we don’t have a lot of money, let’s just plug shit in and record what comes out”.

The guitar sound doesn’t have a lot of bottom end, but here’s the thing – this allows the riffs to shine through, nimble and sharp. Go back and listen to those old early albums from thrash metal’s big names and they sounded the same. “Kill ‘em All” sounds sharp. Exodus’ “Bonded By Blood” is their least heavy album, but has their speediest riffs. “Thrashing Violence” sounds closest in character to Megadeth’s “Killing is My Business…and Business Is Good” – the riffs are choppy rather than chunky, which helped define thrash metal’s early sound.

The title track’s opening riff is reasonably memorable, but doesn’t seem like much to write home about, but then the band put their heads down and absolutely thrash! Stereo separated guitar lines, a throbbing bass line underpinning the guitar, and then a throaty melodic shouted vocal. It’s all you could hope for in a thrash song. And it isn’t limited to that. There’s some almost Death Angel-esque screams, a barked refrain of the song’s title, and a tasty but unindulgent solo. The lyrics aren’t particularly deep and meaningful, being about a love of metal and moshing, but remember that just about every band wrote songs like these back in the day – Rattlehead, Hit The Lights, Bonded By Blood, Metal Command, Hammerhead…

“Hatred” seems a bit darker and a little slower, adding a touch of Possessed or perhaps Celtic Frost to the mix. “Into The Hellmouth” has a military radio intro and outro, and is an outright martial headbanger. When the guitars back off preparing for a solo, the bass and drums really shine through Sodom-style.

And that’s it. Three tracks in just under 12 minutes. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before or been done better, but you know what? That doesn’t matter. This is simply the music these guys want to play, and it’s done will skill and conviction. And it’s exactly what an ageing headbanger going through a mini mid-life crisis wanted to hear.