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It’s
hard not to compare bands when you get a split release.
Unconsciously, I always have to come to a conclusion and it
usually does not take much thought. The differences in quality
are clear, and this split release, to a degree a throwback to
extreme death/thrash classics, is no different. Up first is the
Arizona five-piece Landmine Marathon who claim to play metal,
metal and metal in their MySpace page and judging by these three
tumescing cuts they ain’t lying. Don’t think classic heavy
metal, as Landmine Marathon sound like an old school desperate
death metal band. Not of the Florida death metal style, but of
some of the most corrosive un-Swedish death metal. I was very
surprised to find out that the vocals are handled by one Grace
Perry; a pretty girl of the kind you wouldn’t expect to spend
her nights bashing away extreme music with four sweaty and
smelly dudes. But there you have it; at parts she reminds me of
Karyn Crisis at her most acidic, at others like during the
faster parts of “Changing Addictions” she acquires this more
personal style where she sounds like she is actually biting and
spiting the lyrics right in our faces.
Scarecrow on
the other hand, are more of a crossover thrash metal band. It
was hard to get past the drum sounds, which basically equals
that of cardboard boxes and tuna cans. But fuck it, the guitars
were absolutely killer, spilling guitar solos like that’s what
is all about. And it actually is, especially if you are
concentrating your efforts in mimicking the styles of Testament,
Anthrax and a few others. The music is top notch. No surprise
then as Scarecrow features members of Exhumed, Repulsion, Noothgrush, Dekapitator, Vicious Rumours and others. Scarecrow
ain’t trying to bring it back like Matt Harvey’s other band (Dekapitator).
Presently, it’s quite possibly this is just a one time project
and the low budget recording sort of puts that idea as evidence.
Like much of the material written by the best thrash bands of
the late 80’s, “Twilight’s Light Gleaming” opens with a guitar
duo and slowly breaks into an early Metallica-like riffing. God
damned what happened to those fucks? Now
that I think about it is going to be hard to choose between
these two. Both genres are close to my heart and it just doesn’t
seem fair, so I’ll keep my fave to myself.
Landmine Marathon MySpace
Scarecrow MySpace
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