Written By Kevin McSweeney
Utah Thrashers Return With Frenetic and Ferocious New EP
I’ll be perfectly honest. When I think of Salt Lake City, heavy rock wouldn’t be the sort of music that would usually come to mind. The Osmonds are probably Utah’s most famous musical export, and the local basketball team is called The Jazz. But ever since their debut album, Prognosis Negative, in 2014, Deathblow have been ensuring that the Wasatch Mountains are alive with the sound of metal. We haven’t had a full-length album from them since 2020’s Insect Politics, but their latest EP, Open Season, was released independently on June 16th, and it’s a brief but belligerent offering with bigger teeth than the aforementioned Osmonds.
The title track is first up, opening with a mid-paced chug that brings Motorhead’s Orgasmatron to mind. It soon turns to faster, thrashier territory but the chanted gang vocals on the chorus keep it firmly rooted in punk rock (as does the Dead Kennedys-style cover art). As was very much the case with Lemmy and the boys, this is pure punk energy applied to a heavy metal template, with bluesy lead guitar and gravel-throated vocals: the sound that ultimately formed the inception of thrash metal.
Actually, its vehemence, vitriol and variation in pace reminds me a little of Sepultura on Chaos AD, particularly on the track Refuse/Resist. And in fact, the second track on Open Season is similarly titled, though the chug on Deny, Defend, Dispose is more akin to the Brazilian legends on Inner Self or Dead Embryonic Cells. The solo, on the other hand, is pure Megadeth, evoking memories of Hangar 18 in particular.
The sound moves decidedly in the direction of the Bay Area on Tormentor, which is faster, and introduces a distinct thrash metal riffing style to the order of business. There’s a barrage of double-kick drumming, and plenty of finger-shredding lead guitar. There’s some football/soccer terrace chanting in there as well, just to maintain the punk element.
Fourth track Never Again commences with snare beats like bursts of rifle fire and Slayer-style dissonant lead guitar, before proceeding to wrong-foot the listener by alternating constantly between 4/4 and 6/8 time. They then properly thrash it up with about a minute to go on the clock, with a mouthwatering guitar solo before bringing things to an end in emphatic fashion with a coda consisting of buzzsaw guitars and pummelling kick drum rolls.
And then, just 12 minutes a single second later, it’s all over. They certainly don’t hang around, these guys! There’s no pretence whatsoever. It’s straightforward, no-nonsense stuff, which is only to be expected from a group of musicians who go by the names Holger, Smelly, Paulie and Grob, which sounds like a Trumpton roll call to folks of my vintage. It’s often fast, always ferocious, and well worth less than a quarter of an hour of your time. T’is the season to be thrashing!
Metal Lair awards Open Season by Deathblow 4 out of 5 Devil Horns!
Tracklisting:
Open Season (03:22)
Deny, Defend, Dispose (02:48)
Tormentor (02:35)
Never Again (03:16)
Total: (12:01)
Lineup:
Holger – Guitars/Vocals
Smelly – Guitars
Paulie – Bass
Grob – Drums
Open Season by Deathblow is available to stream on Spotify and YouTube, and available to purchase via Bandcamp
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