Ticket to Mayhem

Ladies and Gentlemen, buy your ticket to mayhem and enjoy the show. Admittedly, today’s show is not very new, but it is the original one and the original version always wins, right? So try to find comfortable seats for your fat asses, even though our vaudeville is pretty outdated, shut up and listen. Those of you who still haven’t bought one of our overpriced bags of popcorn – don’t worry, you do not miss anything during the useless intro. But make sure that you are back as soon as the first tones of “Walk the Plank” set in. This piece marks the first of six gargantuan highlights due to its drilling riffing and the relentless chorus. Not to mention the really mean and mangy screams of main man Tony Portaro. The opener is really a very nice slug in the face, much more vehement than the repertoire of many other thrash bands in 1987. Cool show, isn’t it?

There is someone in the third row raising his hand? You have a weak bladder? No problem, the artists give you the chance to take your piss break right now (excuse our filthy sanitary facilities). “Last Nail in the Coffin” goes many steps back: in terms of vehemence and in terms of quality. The greatest problem is that its second part, “Eternal Eyes”, also sucks in view of its bloodless configuration. But believe me, the remaining parts of the performance deliver pure gold. You can go to any other theatre in town, you will not find a better, straighter, more murderous and more energetic performance than the here presented “The Burning of Atlanta”. Not quite sure whether its lyrics deal with the American Civil War and the things that happened in November 1864 upon the order of old asshole William T. Sherman. Thank God, today the city can extinguish every fire by just plundering the stocks of Coca Cola. Anyway, a giant riff, straight fury and a voluminous sound catapult this song into the thrash metal Olympus.

Of course, it’s not only this track that profits from the album’s mix. “Ticket to Mayhem” spreads powerful and violent vibrations, if we forget the sporadic compositional downers. And they are easily forgettable, because the ultra-harsh and mega-vile hammering of “Snake Pit”, the strong and expressive “Spiral of Violence” with its great riffs and the painful howling of Tony P. in the chorus as well as the torpedo-like “Respect the Dead” form an overwhelming, big finale. By the way, lines like “you must respect the dead that’s where your future lies” remind you of the fact that you better enjoy your last crumbs of popcorn right now. And maybe you would like to have another drink? You can have on, they are not expensive. A little Cola costs no more than a large beer in a Scandinavian high-quality hotel!

Folks, don’t you hear the tones of the outro, equally useless as the intro? Dear paying customers, it’s time to go home. Right now! We can’t stand you and your noisy eating any longer. And don’t forget to clean your seats before leaving. I really understand the bad mood of Tony P. when seeing your mediocre faces. So if you want to lead a better life, get your copy of “Ticket to Mayhem” as soon as possible. Even 33 years after its release, it is still a brutal and fascinating experience.

I'd first like to note that Ticket to Mayhem is a great album title, and the cover art here is wonderful. I'd also like to state that this may just be the finest hour for New Jersey speedsters Whiplash. The later Insult to Injury had some excellent, memorable tracks, but this album is just so fast and fun, for the most part. As far as the band's career post-1990, let's NOT go there. I'll just say they played a lot of older material at gigs, and we'll leave it at that.

"Walk the Plank" is the first metal injection of the disc, and it's quite intense, catchy riffs like a wilder, uncouth Metallica meets Destruction. It's also called WALK THE PLANK. "Last Nail in the Coffin" mellows out for just a moment with some acoustics, before a string of power chords start alternating with acoustics and Tony Portaro's wicked vocals. Interesting to put a song like this so near the beginning of the album, but it's still pretty good (again, slightly akin to Metallica from the Ride the Lightning era). "Drowning In Torment" returns to a blood-crazed frenzy thrash barrage, breaking for speed riffing amidst the chug and crash of its verse rhythm. "Burning of Atlanta" has a slightly high seas metal feel, like the thrashier twin of Running Wild. "Eternal Eyes" incorporates some classic blues metal groove to its verse, quite cool. "Snake Pit" is one of those thrashers you don't forget because it's called SNAKE PIT, and also because of the fucking insanely fast picking riffs. "Spiral of Violence" revisits the acoustic intro, but it gets a lot heavier than "Last Nail in the Coffin". "Respect the Death" is an excellent track to lead out the metal festivities, though the album closes with another "Perpetual Warfare" dark ambient piece.

Ticket to Mayhem sounds as it should, razor sharp guitars playing quite fast through much of the material. Tony Bono (later of Into Another) is a good, fast bass player and keeps the single-minded shred of Tony Portaro anchored. The drums of Joe Cangolisi are energetic for their day, and all of this combined makes the album hold up well in today's metal clime. The lyrics are quite mediocre, but they suffice, as most of the songs are quite good. Definitely a nice American alternative to the wilder days of Kreator and Destruction, and perhaps what Metallica might have sounded like had they gone all balls out instead of the progressive, grounded thrash of ...And Justice for All.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Whiplash’s debut was a fucking intense slab of raw thrash metal. It was gorgeous, at times bordering on crossover for it’s sheer intensity and the short songs. It felt great, and is well up there among the best thrash albums of all time.

However, this isn’t a review of that. This is a review of the follow-up, Ticket to Mayhem. Which is a shame, because it really doesn’t live up to it’s predecessor.

The main problem here is that most of the songs just get so damn boring. The band can write good riffs, but any riff played a thousand times over and over gets pretty boring pretty fast. At first most of the songs sound good...then it gets to about 30 seconds in and you’re thinking “Okay, not bad”...then a minute “Right, time to change it now guys”. By the end of most of the songs you’re not so much rubbing your neck from the pain of all the head-banging as wondering which would be the better place for a bullet: through the three heads of Whiplash or through your own so you don’t have to listen to it any more.

I might be coming off a bit harsh: as you can tell from the score given, I don’t think this is a truly awful album by any means. But the problem is it feels like there’s about one riff in each song, being stretched out like it’s on a rack. Over and over and over and over and over and over and over (if that sentence seems like it’s going on too long, then it must be doing it’s job of conveying the feel of the album nicely). Skip to any part of a track and you're likely to hear the same thing as at any other point in it.

It still gets a reasonable score for two reasons. Firstly, other than the riffs being somewhat thin on the ground, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It sounds raw and thrashy like it should, the vocals are good (although noticeably not on par with Power and Pain, no more shrieks and he doesn’t sound as aggressive), and overall it doesn’t feel like an utter disaster. But things are noticeably worse off than in the debut.

There are also one or two diamonds among the rough (or should that be the other way round, sounds more thrashy?). "Drowning in Torment" has a bit more substance to it than most of the songs on here, and "Eternal Eyes" sounds more like a leftover from Power and Pain, much more vicious in style, and again it keeps things interesting.

That can’t be said of the rest though, about a third of the way through each song I was wishing it was over. The intro is also completely pointless. It wouldn’t be bad if it was 30 seconds or so, but 1:40? Jesus christ guys, get on with it. I suppose it sets the tone for the rest of the album well enough: it goes on about three times longer than it should and feels very boring.

Some thrash is dull because the riffs are uninspired or tiresome. That’s not the case here, for the most part they’re perfectly respectable, and the other elements of the music do an adequate, though not spectacular, job of backing them up. But this album gets dull because they go on so long without changing or doing anything interesting, they just repeat themselves to death, then get resurrected and come back to haunt you all over again. Take a riff from Power and Pain, cut the second half of it off, then just imagine it repeated constantly. That’s what most of the songs here sound like.

In all, only really worth getting for a big Whiplash fan. If you’re just looking for good thrash, stick to the debut.

With their debut Power and Pain Whiplash had clearly set themselves apart from the thrash norm. As many fans acknowledge, Whiplash are usually pretty infamous for their screamingly high pitched guitar riffs and rhythm's that ended up sounding pretty damn cool and original, compared to what everyone else was doing at the time. Is that still the case with this follow up release? Well, somewhat but I believe if you took both Power and Pain and their 1990 release Insult to Injury then smashed them together, you'd end up with Ticket to Mayhem.

Vocalist and guitarist Tony Portaro is back along with Tony Bono on bass guitars, with the exception of Joe Cangelosi replacing the other Tony on drums (always loved the Tony lineup). You probably won't notice much of a difference in the drums as Cangelosi does a fantastic job creating intense beats while bursting into pure speed fairly often. Portaro and Bono again handle their instruments incredibly well. However, this is probably when Portaro was starting to think about including a real vocalist into the band (which would happen with Insult to Injury). He's still a rough thrash growler, though there are a few tracks where it seems like he really wanted to sing and I can't help but notice it sounds pretty odd and almost out of place. It's not something I'm going to pick apart because it doesn't bring the album down or anything, but I prefer when he just screams his lungs out. Which is luckily still the case for the majority of the album here. The production is simply put, grade A work.

That kind of brings me to my other point though, as I've setup in the first paragraph. This album is truly all over the place. It's really hard to explain my thoughts on this because while one could probably say the album is inconsistent, as diverse as it is the quality is still pretty much there and most of the songs are great. You've got a handful of tracks that sound like something straight from their debut Power and Pain, like Walk This Plank, The Burning Of Atlanta, Snake Pit, and Respect The Death. These are the tracks with rapid firing razor sharp riffs that scream "Whiplash", totally insane and relentless numbers. The other half of the album is made up of material you could expect to hear on Insult To Injury. The speed is replaced with a little more heaviness, Portaro attempts to sing a little more, and overall the songs come off as a little more laid back than what Whiplash is known for. While I can honestly admit if this entire album were made up of debut-esque tracks, I'd probably rank it even higher than Power And Pain, but that's not the case with the other tracks. As for the intro and outro (which are essentially the same thing), they are pretty cool loaded with sounds of warfare and whatnot pumping you up for what to expect here, but are a bit too long for their own good.

Maybe I'm just being slightly cynical here and wanted this to be Power and Pain II perhaps? All in all I do have to again stress that the quality is still there with the majority of the album, I'd also like to state that I do firmly believe Insult To Injury is an awesome release. If you've somehow missed out on Whiplash all this time you really are missing out on a masterful thrash act, I might recommend checking out their debut first though. If you've heard that and their other releases and still haven't heard this one, what are you waiting for! Just expect a little bit of experimentation with this one.

Highlight: The Burning Of Atlanta, that's up there with their debut classics!

***(Note 2002: This review is of the "2-on-1" that was released by Displeased Records, and so this review applies to BOTH albums, not just this one)***

Thanks to Displeased Records for this re-release of Whiplash's first two albums, since RoadRuiner let this stuff rot for so damn long. Whiplash were one of the glut of mid-80s 'first-wave' thrash bands, but somehow they got lost in the shuffle, despite the fact that they were one of the better bands and that two former members went on to play with Slayer and Kreator. The world is an unfair place, that's for damn sure...

So, what's the band like? Imagine the kind of band that the name 'Whiplash' implies - there you go: sheer, breakneck speed with catchy riffs. Guitarist/vocalist Tony Portaro has some really harsh vocals, shouted and pushed almost to the point of death-metal gruffness, and his razor-sharp guitar tone slices through the riffs. Bassist Tony Bono is surprisingly agile - his bass lines are supportive without being merely doubling, and he knows exactly when to throw in a good fill. Both original drummer Tony Scaglione (yes, they had three Tony's in the original lineup) and second-album drummer Joe Cangelosi were human whirlwinds, and kept up the pace admirably.

Both albums stuck to the same basic style, but I personally think that "Power and Pain" is the slightly better of the two, simply because it's a bit more cohesive as a whole and has a thicker guitar sound (plus, with songs like "Stage Dive", "Nailed to the Cross", and "Power Thrashing Death", how could you NOT like it more?). That's not to downplay "Ticket to Mayhem", though - it's just slightly more varied, as they experiment with a few slower tempos (of course, slower for them is still fast as hell, but you know what I mean....), and the guitar tone is a bit more high-end 'metallic'. These two albums are thrash classics, and being both available on one CD makes it absolutely irresistible if you like your music fast fast fast - get your fix of Power Thrashing Death NOW!

(Originally published at LARM (c) 1999)