Onslaught – Sounds of Violence (2011)

With the current Thrash Metal revival we have seen bands like Exodus, Forbidden, etc, release very impressive albums. Onslaught brings their A-game and manages to release a pretty solid effort with “Sounds of Violence”. This album marks their best effort to date, after a long break and return to the scene in 2005.

Getting into “Sounds of Violence”, we are presented with 8 tracks and two filler intro songs. For around 45 minutes the band does a great job in bringing back the old-school Thrash Metal vibe with some more up-to-date production values. This release sounds like a million bucks thanks to the help of Jacob Hansen and allows the band to fully showcase its technical abilities and songwriting chops.

The first thing the listener will notice is the traditional Thrash Metal riffing of the opening track (after the dumb intro) “Born for War”, the guitars quickly create the old-school atmosphere and the vocals greatly complement the feeling. The ‘harsher’ vocals sound very well in the moments used and give a more aggressive feeling to the music.

Most tracks in this release feature equal quality, since each one has enough elements to make you like them and never get the feeling you already heard that track before. This is probably the best part of this release for us, since most Thrash Metal albums tend to drag after 4-5 songs due to the high ‘riff-cycling’ content. We have to agree that both guitar players do an excellent job in coming up with interesting riffs and leads.

The vocals are very well balanced and never get annoying, the switch between ‘harsh’ and regular vocals is a nice refreshing element to keep things a bit more dynamic. The drumming and bass guitar lines are pretty standard and will keep you entertained, thanks to the great production and very balanced mixing behind “Sounds of Violence”.

If you are in the market for another solid Thrash Metal release to add to you collection, you should definitely get “Sounds of Violence”. This release features very memorable songs and an old-school vibe minus the shitty production.

Release: February 8th, 2011

Country: UK