Blessed Curse: S/T
Holy fork. Just when you thought this whole retro thrash revival thing was getting old, just when you thought it was about time to hang up the jeans jacket laden with patches, something gives you the urge to put it back on or make one that you never had. Something makes you grow your hair to where it was in the 80s, or where it should have been, something makes you scream, something makes you grab a beer and air guitar in front of a crowd without an ounce of care about how ridiculous you look. And if Blessed Curse is playing in the background, no one, absolutely no one will mess with you. There are so many bands trying to do this sort of thing, but they can’t, they weren’t born for it, and they most certainly weren’t born into it. Hell, most of them weren’t even born at all. Blessed Curse looks like they’re about fifty years old with shoes they’re still wearing from the late 1970s, but they don’t give a flying fork about it. They’re proud of what they are, thrash to the core, it bleeds out of them, their raw stench exudes thrash, they sleep in it, they eat it, they puke it, it’s a brew only they can manage to distill. Operating for around ten years as a band known as Devastator, the dudes are back with a new look, and easily one of the greatest album covers of any metal band, of all time. It seems very little is out there about their previous incarnation, but it doesn’t matter, because whatever they’re doing now needs to persist, forever.
Released on a label with almost no information on the internet, M-Theory Audio, Blessed Curse doesn’t present itself as extreme quality at first glance. It’s obviously thrash, and you know of the revival variety, but that doesn’t often say much. Sure, that werewolf is killer, can’t deny it, but the slight misplacement of the label logo on the tray card spine, as well as the only problem with this album, found in the track list, the misspelling of ‘bonus’ as ‘bonust,’ doesn’t prepare you for much. We’ve had some fine looking cover art covering a pile of barf around here, trust us. Sometimes an awesome cover is all a band has going for it. Great cover art is a plus, but in this case it’s a bonus, or rather bonust, because it’s awesome on top of awesome misspelling be damned. Blessed Curse play revival thrash with no real hang-ups. There isn’t much inventiveness here, at all. The production quality is nice and clear, yet with a slight rawness to it to keep it underground, the solos blister, the drums pump, the chords tear, it’s exactly what you want out of thrash. But that’s just it, this is exactly what you’re looking for, like there can be nothing else after this except another Blessed Curse release.
Blessed Curse is a surprising release for the sole reason that it practically everything you expect. Most of the chord arrangements are typical thrash, but in its typicalness, these guys have somehow found a way to pull it all ahead. They can play thrash easily, it’s all there, though it’s worth noting the vocals on this are just, just wow. Most thrash has this remnant of earlier hair metal in the stew, but these guys go for layering and harsh throat as pieces of the dude’s vocal chords fly out in bloody chunks on your face. Check out some of the back-and-forth at the end of “Eternal Hate/Blessed Curse,” for example. Dem screams. Perhaps it’s an accident, we won’t know until they release another one, but for what it is currently, this is a great release, top-notch thrash, the way thrash should always sound. The revival movement basically does the same old, but in this case it’s what you need, it’s all you need, it’s the atypically typical. If Blessed Curse can somehow carry this sound throughout the rest of their career, they’re going to go from full werewolf to werewerewolf and then further than that into some beast no one without an ounce of metal in them can possibly survive. Every track on this is worth countless repeat listens, this one doesn’t grow on you, it’s a part of you from the beginning. Awesome.
Blessed Curse Official Facebook
Written by Stanley Stepanic
Blessed Curse: S/T
M-Theory Audio
5 / 5
