Review Summary: It is possible for solid executions of thrash to be simultaneously lackluster and underwhelming.
Anihilated are a, still active, thrash metal band formed in 1981 from the United-Kingdom. They’ve release 5 LP’s to date. Before their revival album in 2010,
The Ultimate Desecration was released in 1989. This 4th LP release marks a good place to start if anyone wanted to check these guys out. It took them a few album to develop their sound and
The Ultimate Desecration marks their crowning achievement, which at the same time, isn’t saying too much judging by what the genre has accomplished during the old school era.
Most of Anihilated’s songs are mid-tempo paced which allows them to focus on some of their more melodic riffs. The first two tracks “Desolation” and “Into the Flames of Armageddon” are solid songs but they get a bit lost in the lack of creative riffing patterns and dynamics. These tracks tend to feel rather generic even though everything is executed quite well. Take for instance “Skinned Alive”, the riffs are quite tasty but because they are executed so slowly it feels like the song almost never starts until around the midway point when the tempo picks up. It’s not until the 5th track “Lethal Dose” where we get a bit of a pick-up and punch. The riffs on this track are much more appealing than previous ones as the dueling guitars keep the listener interested with an intro, although simple, that is rather effective before jumping into solo that sets the best for innovative riffs to follow. Most of any following tracks are back to the slow basic riffing patterns that are decent but take no cake.
The production is solid here and you will hear riffs peak out that are as good as anything you have heard but because 90% of the album is lackluster many listeners won’t even get that far.
The Ultimate Desecration is still an album that could warrant listens for the purpose of fillers between more prominent thrash albums or even as background music as a warm up to long nights worth of thrashing. Although the album is sometimes boring it still has its moments and is still slightly above average. And compared to modern thrash like Havok, Anihilated are still much better in comparison. Feel free to give this a spin as it is worthy for true thrash ears but you wouldn’t be missing much if you passed it up.
