Metal Discharge marked yet another major line-up change for Destruction, finding Sven Vormann departing from the group, being replaced by Marc Reign. Of course, this wound up affecting the band's music greatly. After returning to their roots for two solid albums that showed the band maturing nicely, Metal Discharge found the band losing an intricate amount of what made the group stand out amongst the seas of Thrash acts out there. While this release was still an enjoying album, it just doesn't quite have that same bite, and in fact, comes off a bit amateurish at times.
A lot of things are different with Destruction on this album. Some of it could very be attributed the production of the album, especially with the vocals. Sadly, they are just not as strong on this release and actually sound rather generic. It's clear there's some distortion used on them, but it makes them sound a little mechanical in a literal sense. The only time that they don't is when a deeper attempt is made vocally, like during the slower moments of "Rippin' the Flesh Apart", though they never really get that low. The guitars also don't really have that much of a bite to them either, coming off a little cleaner then they really shoul be. The drumming, however, does sound pretty much on par of what you would expect from a Thrash album, so that's at least something good. Though the guitars and drums don't sound as good or intimidating as they should be, it doesn't mean that they are terrible as a whole.
Infact there are some really good tracks on this release despite the production. The first track, "The Ravenous Beast", welcomes you to the new sound nicely and offers a nice bridge for fans to become adjusted to this sound. Much of the songs on here typically go at a mid-tempo pace, so it's nice that the album kicks off with a much faster and intense track then many other songs on here. "Desecrators of the New Age" is another song with some hard hitting music that many Thrash fans will enjoy. It mixes up the faster paced music with slower paced verses throughout the song nicely, but the problem with this track is that there isn't anything all too unique about the track in the long run and, outside the drumming, much of the music is simple, especially in the guitar work, whereas the drumming shows a decent amount of technicality. "Vendetta" is another song much like "Desecrators of the New Age", except the song slows down during the chorus and comes off more as a marching type of track during those times. The chorus comes off a little more intimidating then many songs, especially at the end of the track which is where it really shines through.
The only problem you'll really notice as you go through Metal Discharge is that many of the songs essentially share the same pattern. There's not many faster paced songs on here, and when they do hit, they typically succumb to a slower paced segment, traditionally through bridges, or in some cases the chorus. "Desecratores of the New Age", "Vendetta", even "Savage Symphony of Terror" and more seem to do this and don't really offer any real variety as far as the structures go. Aside the structures, some songs eventually just start to sound repetitiv in their own right as you continue on, which starts about the time off "Mortal Remains", which also is a rather bland song compared to the rest of the album thanks to it's slower pace and music that just sounds flat out generic and more Groove oriented then Thrash. The saving grace of this song is when the chorus is being repeated, the song picks up shortly, and more cymbols are added to accompany the slight shift in speed. Aside that is also the addition of harmonized vocals on some tracks. While you hear it earlier, the track "Desecrators of the New Age" features some harmonized rhaspy vocals at the start, and it works throughout the song when utilized, but those verses clash with everything else when the speed picks up and the vocals switch to the traditional harsher style used throughout the release.
| 2010 Reissue: |
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The third in a series of three reissues from Metal Mind Productions, it features the same things as the others. It's limited to two thousand copies pressed and issued in a digipack with expanded notes on the band's history on a seperate paper included. It also features the most bonus tracks of the reissues, having seven total, which include cover tracks and demo tracks. The cover songs on here are about what you would expect from Destruction, but have a stronger production quality then what appears on this release, sounding more solid in general, especially as far as the vocals are concerned. The demo tracks all sound great and, of course, are just nice little additions to have for the Destruction collector. It's also nice to hear how some of these songs took shape from the demo to the actual full-length versions that appear on their respected release, but "Bestial Invasion Demo Version '99" and "The Butcher Strikes Back Demo Version '99" would have better been placed on the reissue of The Antichrist since that's where these songs ended up. |
The only problem one could see with the bonus tracks is that there are tracks missing. "Bestial Invasion Demo Version '99" and "The Butcher Strikes Back Demo Version '99" both come off the band's 1999 demo The Butcher Strikes Back, but the third track from that demo, "World Domination of Pain", is inexplicably missing. On top of that, the original version came with the music video for "The Ravenous Beast", but that, too, is not on this disc. Sure, the addition of these seven bonus tracks probably caused that to be dropped from the final product, but the lack of "World Domination of Pain" is confusing as there is still room on this disc for another song, or there even could have been a bonus disc with all these bonus tracks to make sure a complete package, especially since the The Antichrist reissue still retained the initial sixty six track pressing. But, either way, these songs are still nice to have, and, like the rest of the album, are all remastered in 24-bit audio and come pressed on a gold disc for the best audio quality, which is exactly what you get with this recording.
So, while Metal Discharge doesn't quite live up to the hype of their then recent works, it still featured a good amount of material that was enjoyable. The main problem here seemed to be the production quality used that took away from the bite that the band had been building over time, and the line-up change clearly didn't help things either. All in all, the album is one worth checking out, but perhaps not breaking your back over to get, even though the 2010 reissue of the album is honestly worth finding a copy of due to the stunning remastered quality and all the bonus tracks included that compliment the Destruction discography nicely.
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