Kobold – Death Parade (When Will Vintage Thrash Die? Parade)
Welcome Serbia’s Kobold and their Death Parade, 15 tracks of ass-blistering, face-melting, dick-scalding, heart-burning, finger-gnashing, teeth-crushing, curb-stomped, methhead speed metal. The things I like about Kolbold’s take on the old is that it doesn’t stray from the path of what has come before. The cover by Željko Manojlović is very 80’s with those Big Brother, dystopian, toxic vibes, what with that machine-gun-wielding warhog wearing a black leather jacket. The trio even have their own mascot, a seemingly nameless…kobold. I mean whatever, loads of thrash bands have mascots, it’s a staple of the genre.
Death Parade is brazenly fast until “Soul Funeral,” where it slows down to allow some breathing room, followed by “NWO” which is an all-instrumental track that keeps the same pace. But then they pick up with a nice choppy, punch-you-in-the-face snare that, again, is emblematic of the genre. Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! The lyrics follow suite with stereotypical thrash metal content covering all well-worn, well-tred topics of violence, anger, drugs, sex, religion, and government. In fact, I feel like there is nothing distinctly Serbian about this album… One of the great things about music is when you hear influence, and here you get that. If you want straight up 80’s thrash/speed metal, then by all means listen to all 15 tracks and you’ll be happy as a toxic pig in a 50 gallon drum in Biff’s Hill Valley. But if you want something that breaks open the drum with a font of metal re-examined with a Serbian bend, don’t plan on hearing it. Death Parade works great as an homage to 80’s metal. Kobold can play and are appropriately influenced, but they don’t have much of an identity past generic 80’s speed metal other than being Serbian. Let’s hear the Serbian in the thrash and speed!
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Maligner – Attraction to Annihilation
Self-Released
3.5 / 5
