Thrash You!

Abandoned's first record, called Thrash Notes is a pretty decent listen, and it has its moments that will make you appreciate it one way or another. The band's follow-up however is one hell of a flop. This period in general was not at all bad for thrash metal, though. New, energetic bands emerged, like Warbringer, Fueled By Fire, Suicidal Angels, and more thrash revivalist bands started to carry on the flame of this genre. While Abandoned's follow-up is true to the predecessor's style, the entire album just falls on its face in a bunch of different ways. With the subtle moments of cleverness and resourcefulness mostly gone, Thrash You! is dull and underwhelming.

As aforementioned, the style did not change much. The band still plays that precision-oriented (or aspirant, let's put it that way) thrash metal they played on their first album. The only major change that took place was the production. Not that a rawer, more unrefined production would have helped these compositions a whole lot, but the band went for an extremely clear, at the time modern, cutting-edge sound, and it only does one thing. It emphasizes the repetitiveness and the tediousness of the compositions even further. This way, you can certainly tell that this record really wasn't ready to be released. Major own goal.

To be fair to the band, there are enjoyable moments on here. "Disorder" is easily the best song on here, with an undeniably catchy main melody in the chorus that will get anybody headbanging in no time. "Die In Dignity" also has a pretty cool riff under the solo that switches things up from doom and gloom to moderated optimism mixed with frantic adrenaline, a clever move indeed. Furthermore, the solos are mostly sufficient, and at times, even melodic. They aren't super technical, but even if this album was great, they wouldn't need to be super technical.

The big issue with this album is its painfully tiresome lifelessness and dullness that goes on for almost 50 minutes. Generally, the riffs are not terrible, but there is literally no force, no energy, no "oomph" behind them. Some of these transitions the band incorporates into their music could also be discarded, like the one in "Feel The Fire" from 2:32... Why would you repeat that stale, grey progression and those couple of lead notes that many times? They weren't that interesting the first time, so why repeat it 5-6 times? Similarly, the pace also mostly sticks to one single moderately fast tempo, which doesn't help when you combine that with these utterly uninspired riffs and vocals. "Trapped" breaks that trend for a brief second, in case you're still awake by that time, but it's, unfortunately, a victim of some idiotic spoken word sections over strictly generic riffs that are as easy to forget as 4 seconds after the song is over.

This is not what you're looking for if you're looking for a good underground thrash. There is plenty of that in Germany, but this one is just a waste of time. I now learned that the guitar player (and vocalist) of Abandoned is the same as the Eric "Kalli" Kaldschmidt from the Masters of Disguise. It sounds like he does way better in power/speed metal and with only having to play guitar. It would be great if he did more of that. And perhaps less thrash metal.

ABANDONED is a band that impressed me from the first time I saw this album just by its title. "Thrash You!" seems a pretty indicating title to what the band plays. They don't play Power or Black Metal for sure! Anyway, the only thing that is left to see is if this band can really thrash us. Join me and I assure you that we will find this out for ourselves.

ABANDONED came to life in 2000 (if I am not mistaken), in Darmstadt, Germany. The year they were formed, they managed to release their first demo, entitled "Forcefed". One more demo followed in 2003 and the band finally signed a contract with Dockyard 1 to release its debut album "Thrash Notes" in 2006. One year later (which means now), the band releases its second full-length effort.

As many people say, a band's second full-length album is a very crucial moment. The band has to prove its true abilities and kick some ass or just get lost in mediocrity. Since I haven't listened to any of ABANDONED's previous releases and I do not even know the ex bands of some of the members, I do not know exactly what I will face. The band says it plays a mixture of old school Thrash Metal in the vein of American legends like SLAYER, TESTAMENT and EXODUS. It seems we are talking about a German band that plays the sound of Bay Area Thrash Metal. I am starting to get a bit worried. Let's see... After having listened to "Thrash You!" several times I can say that ABANDONED's music reminds of some early (as well as recent) SLAYER, TESTAMENT, TANKARD, KREATOR, but in my humble opinion their main influence is the latest ANNIHILATOR releases. This doesn't seem illogical since the band was formed in 2000. The music is "covered" with a pretty good production, something that is a must for this genre nowadays.

Even though it all sounds pretty cool and many of you will already have loved this band, I can say that "Thrash You!" didn't have even one moment that would make me bang my fucking head. Maybe it is the riffing that is a bit common, maybe it is Eric's voice which is not the most unique voice I have ever heard. I really don't know. It is just that this album is good, but not good enough to make me grab it again in the near future to listen to it on my portable CD player, in the car or something. I could describe this band as a classic Thrash one. A band that will probably kick ass live, a band that has some fine ideas, but it doesn't manage to create a personal sound that could "elevate" them a bit higher than mediocrity.

If you are just looking for a cool Thrash Metal album that will accompany you until the release of the new TESTAMENT album or if you just hated the new ANNIHILATOR work, you can rely on ABANDONED. Otherwise, this album may not feed your hunger for pure Thrash Metal.

Originally written for Metal-Temple.Com
Yiannis D.

When I first saw Abandoned on Earthshaker Fest in '05, they didn't make a very memorizable performance. And although they're debut wasn't all bad, it wasn't mindblowing either. This new album is more of the same.

While the music is good in almost all its aspects (fast, raging and old school), the vocals require the necessary appreciation. Sometimes it all reminds me of the more thrashy Iced Earth songs, due to the use of power metal influences. This doesn't ensure that Iced Earth fans will like this though, 'cause it all sounds a lot more like German thrash. Anyway, it can't be denied that a lot of stuff that's played on this album, are direct copies of their idols (some Bay Area, but even more German thrash legends). In my opinion that's not a bad thing, 'cause I like the genre, but it isn't original either (so if you're looking for original thrash, this isn't the band). The main obstacle of finding this album a great release, are without any doubt -like I said- the vocals, 'cause they sound more like harsh power vocals, then like raw thrash vocals. It's not that they're bad, but they don't match the music in its whole.

If you're a bit open-minded on the thrash genre, you can almost blindly buy this album. Otherwise I'd recommend to check them out on their MySpace first...

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