Fit of Anger

Yes, you should be; otherwise you won’t be reading this review right now, and you won’t be moshing like demented on the album reviewed here. In fact, our friends here didn’t start their career as full-blooded thrashers; this opus is a very tasteful compendium of power, speed and thrash coming as a less vicious and more varied version of Megadeth’s “Peace Sells…”.

Wrath were indeed on fire at the beginning of their career, producing some of the finest metal in the US from the mid-80’s. Armed with some of the most dexterous shredders on the circuit like Mike Nyrkkanen and the band founder Scott Nyquist, the guys were destined for glory, not to mention the presence of Gary Golwitzer, one of the most notable banshees in the annals of metal, a high-strung wailer who led the show with all the piercing pathos available to him at the time.

In other words, all the requisite tools of the trade were at the band’s disposal the guys waking everyone up for some impetuous galloping speed/thrash with “In the Wake”, an early masterpiece with the dramatic surges and the sudden tempo shifts, a template later used by acts like Attacker for the creation of a whole album (“Second Coming”, that is). An eye-opening introduction in every way, it gets replaced by a string of more linear power/speed metal pieces (“Children of The Wicked”, “What's Your Game”) the band crossing over the vogues at the time, even winking at the doom metal spectre with the seismic steam-rolling instrumental “Bones”, the guys excelling in the lead department on this one with spell-binding melodic pirouettes. The more aggressive thrashy veneer comes back in the second half with “Fanatics”, a short ripping cut which compels one to start moshing around, and also to saddle the horses on another galloping delight, “Fallen Angel” which opening rifforama is a total “Seek & Destroy” worship, the more technical layout of “Machine” suggesting loftier configurations to be explored very soon.

A very promising first coming the guys doing everything right, summing up the best from three genres without taking a firm side, trying to keep a wider gamut of fans in the vicinity at this early stage, with thrash marginally taking the upper hand here and there. Golwitzer’s vocal bravado is by all means an acquired taste, but to these ears his involvement is more of a pro than a con as it gives the album a more pronounced character and a more individualistic flair.

However, even a strong effort of the kind can only serve as a blueprint as evident from the superb sophomore, one of the greatest products of the metal scene, a crowning achievement that should have catapulted the band straight to the top if there was even a tiny bit of justice in this shitty world of ours... alas, Wrath remained just an underground phenomenon despite the fact that they even managed to procure a third instalment by the end of the decade, the less focused but still pretty cool “Insane Society”. Yes, society was insane indeed, idolizing all kinds of Metallicas, Megadeths, Anthraxes, etc. and not spending enough time, if at all, unearthing buried gems… cause this is where the truth was, away from the public eye, hidden behind unsightly green, Hulk-like covers and soaring banshee-resembling vocal feats.

A tightened act appearance-wise the guys have been displaying ever since they returned in 2008, but on the music front this is anything but; serious vacillations have been detected in their delivery, from miscalculated banal tributes to the 90’s (the “Wrath” EP), to more reasonable adherence to the old school canons (“Stark Raving Mad”), to ill-advised blends between the two (the freshly released “Rage”)… the angry ship is still sailing, but there’s no guarantee that its voyage would be completely clear off any wreckages. Well, as long as they keep the metal gods happy… cause you know, just a small fit of anger released from those deities, and…

boom.

Fit Of Anger is the Bay-Area Thrash Metal band from Chicago, Wrath’s first album. Techno-Thrash is what Wrath would be called- at least in the 80’s. They say that Techno-Thrash does not exist anymore, and would now be called Progressive Thrash. The way I see it, Techno-Thrash just means it’s technical Thrash metal, which I am sure exists today. Though this album is not all that technical, or as melodic as their second release, it’s DAMN amazing. After hearing about this album only being some what decent, I wasn’t sure if I should listen to it. Nothing To Fear was probably the best album to go for that I heard from reviews, and really, it’s true. After hearing all three Wrath albums, Nothing To Fear is the best, but that certainly does not mean that this album is NOT great. It really is great and a FINE debut.

I was a little scared to listen to this album when it was first available. First off, I was afraid that this would suck, and I was afraid that it would rule. Especially after hearing that this album was only mediocre, so I was some-what hoping that it was only going to be mediocre. As I continued to listen to it, I ended up loving it. It currently is one of my favorite albums, but still doesn’t beat their finest and second release Nothing To Fear, then again, nor did I expect it to.

What I noticed about this album is that since it lacks the technique and progression, it’s a very catchy and heavy album. Much heavier than Nothing To Fear, and probably much more fun I guess you could say because this seems more like the kind of thrash I could head bang all the time to.

The first track on the album called In The Wake is a damn good start with the nice shrill vocals with LOTS of reverb and effects to accent the sound. The guitars are awesome in the song, and all though as the song progresses, it gets slower, but picks back up during the solo. 8/10

Children Of The Wicked is up next. Starts off with the sound of a crowd of children yelling and what not, THEN the song itself starts up giving off a nice heavy and killer catchy riffs and drums. The vocals in this song have very little shrill, and me being SO used to Gary’s scream, it’s kinda refreshing to hear just regular tenor singing I guess you could call it. One of the stand out tracks on the album. 10/10

Next up here is What’s Your Game. Awesome track, and sounds very similar to Children Of The Wicked, but with shrill vocals, and a little less technical as that song. With Gary’s shrill screaming and singing sound a lot more untrained, but still, it’s good. On Nothing To Fear, his vocals are more trained and they seem more melodic on that one. This is another stand out track. 9/10

Abuse It Till It Bleeds is the fourth track. This one starts out with drums with lots of double bass, but the guitars START out kinda lacking, but then start to pick up. Unfortunately, this song does lack compared to the other first three tracks, but almost every album has it’s throw-away tracks. This one happens to be one of them, but its an alright song. 7/10.

Bones is a nice killer instrumental. I never thought that I would see the angrier side of Wrath, but you get to on this one. This one was probably meant to be more of a head banger and is damn awesome. However, this is not quite the Wrath that I am used to hearing, so it doesn’t quite sound like them, but I KNOW it’s them. 8/10

Fanatics is probably one of the technical songs that loses its touch. That’s okay though. The drums are constant which is giving it more speed. Another thing to note of is that the vocals on this one I don’t think are done by Gary Golwitzer, because there are NO shrilling, and it doesn’t even sound like him. The vocals on this song are much more aggressive and sinister. As for the guitar work, has some killer leads with the two hand tapping. 7/10

Fallen Angel – Starts out atmospheric with the 30 second acoustic intro and the air in the background. Once it gets heavy, it’s one hell of a catchy tune. The album definitely picks up again with this one and has pretty good progression. Unfortunately, the progression gets a little annoying, because it goes from slow, to fast, then back to slow and so on. Eventually, it starts to balance with the speed. 8/10.

Machine is a totally killer tune thanks to the drums. This one will for sure make you head bang, and this one is totally catchy as hell. I haven’t heard this one as much though which is highly unfortunate, but so far, this is a great song. 8/10.

After Machine, Vigilante Killer comes in delivering a very awesome intro, and also this one of the more technical songs. Really nice, but Gary’s vocals aren’t shrill and his tenor singing is not very good, so that’s really where the song lacks its greatness- is in the vocals. Killer song though, but in a way lacks its greatness. 8/10.

Breakdown, now this one is highly catchy and somewhat fun to listen to, but don’t let that fool you because it’s not one of the great tracks on this album and I’ll leave it at that. 7/10.

The version I have of this CD has a bonus track on it; Sudden Death. Sudden Death was also re-recorded for Nothing To Fear. This might be the demo version, but man, this version is more head banging thanks to the production of the drums. It’s not as good as the Nothing To Fear version, and the vocals on this one aren’t as great as they are on NTF, but it’s a great song none the less. 9/10.

BOTTOM LINE: The production is GREAT, the tracks are GREAT. The songs are much more catchy, but aren’t as technical as the Wrath that I am used to. I HIGHLY recommend this one to Thrash lovers, like myself, and I cannot see why this is so mediocre, because ITS BETTER THAN MEDIOCRE. Since the averages of songs normally were an 8, and because I loved this so much, I am rounding it up to 8.5 out 10.