Biērmächt

I deleted my old review of this album, I think I was a bit hard on the release. Over time this record has grown on me and I can finally accept the fact that this record is not Shark Attack Part 2. Biermacht is a different type of brew compared to Shark Attack and earlier demo efforts from the mighty Wehrmacht. Shark Attack, perhaps my favorite album in thrash/crossover, is a balls out speedfest layered with tales of gore, social commentary, sharks, skankin, and, of course, beer. Biermacht focuses more on the "fun" aspect of Wehrmacht's topics, with half the songs focused on keggers, partying, or joke songs and the other half covering old tunes like Night of Pain or Gore Flix.

I label this album as more of a party album (look no further than the excellent album cover) due to the overall sound and progression of the songs. Perhaps the biggest qualm I had with this album was the delivery. Musically, for the most part, this is a step down from Shark Attack in terms of aggression which comes partly from the production. I have to stand by my opinion, this album is heavily overproduced. The guitars are super loud in the mix, have a nice high gain distortion to them but seem too squeaky clean. Kinda reminds me of a weaker, less chunky version of Dimebag Darrell's Cowboys from Hell tone or a beefy version of Kreator's Terrible Certainty guitar crunch. It sounds like the guitars are highly compressed and don't have much subtlety to them. The bass from Shann is actually very clear and packs a good punch. Brian's drums are also incredibly overproduced. The snare sounds like a marching band snare, so ridiculously tight it sounds like it's going to snap. Snare sound is a huge pet peeve of mine when listening to a song, so this is naturally hard to ignore while Brian is hammering away. The other part of the delivery is the songs themselves. Of course, the older classics like Night of Pain, Gore Flix, and Wehrmacht go off without a hitch, for the most part. Drink Beer, Be Free! and You Broke My Heart can also hold their own with the older selections in the repertoire. However, during the majority of the songs, I usually hear one to two things that are off to the ears, production aside. Some of the drum ideas in the beginning of You Broke My Heart, Balance of Opinion, and Drink Beer Be Free are sometimes half assed. Brian has this bad habit of substituting his toms for a regular hi-hat skank or grind beat, something he does to this day which is quite annoying. Without beating a dead horse, Biermacht, plain and simple, is the more produced, sloppier brother of Shark Attack.

The majority of the songs on Biermacht are strong, mainly because Wehrmacht's members are such excellent musicians. All of the retro-songs that were brought back from the old demo days are all classic Wehrmacht material, with Gore Flix and the title track being the best of all. Biermacht the song is perhaps the best on the album. It just screams in drunken delight with the EPIC riffs, flurry of beer inspired lyrics, and fast drumming. We start out with a Detroit Rock City homage that lasts about 15 seconds, that rips into Marco's intro riff that gets progressively faster and faster until it reaches a blast beat climax. The second riff kicks in with MORE COWBELL while Tito explodes into a declaration of beer soaked lyrics. BIERMACHT!! BIERMACHT!! BIERMACHT!! BIERMACHT!! The guys chug some more brews in alcoholic revelry then the second verse kicks in with a more sinister hardcore riff. John and Marco do a guitar break and Shann does a mini solo to build up into Tito's gattling gun salvo of the best damned beers in the world! Marco ends the song with the American Dixie outro and then song finally detonates with one final chord. I nearly got this album just to hear this song. All previous songs pale in comparison to these 2 minutes of Lucky Lager mania.

Of the five "new songs" on Biermacht (YBMH, Drink Beer, Be Free, Balance of Opinion, Drink Jack, and Radical Dissection) the two stinkers are Drink Jack and Balance of Opinion. With Balance of Opinion I think they tried to write a song with lots of time changes (tiny blasts segue into almost trudge riffs) and it just does not work. The guitar work meshed in the chorus is catchy and some of Brian's time changes are tasteful but that's some of the only redeemable qualities here. I can't get over how lame Tito's choice of lyrics/delivery is here. Drink Jack sounds like they came up with it as a last ditch effort to fill more time on the album. They could have substituted this song and the interlude for a real killer song. Anyways this is why I call this a "party album." It's the guys screaming "drink jack!" to a slow riff. Literally nothing else happens. The other tracks are real high energy cuts with plenty of time changes and sinister hardcore riffing. YBMH reminds me of Stranglehold by Ted Nugent and Radical Neck Dissection is kind of like Crazy Ways People Die Part 2. Drink Beer, Be Free is keeps your attention with Lucky Lager chants (Score!) and pitches the age old question: If you can kill at 18, why can't you drink? Something to think about.

Note on the Outro and Munchies: Some people will skip this track, but it can be fun to try to listen to whats going on. To break it down, there's 3 different ideas going on here. On the middle channel, it's a recording of Marco's 18th birthday. Marco and Brian blow chunks while their friends chant funny shit. "Here we go vomit! Here we go vomit! Here we go Marco Sharko!" On the right channel Tito does a spoken word piece on having fun but doing it in a safe way. Basically wear a condom, treat others with respect, and be happy! On the left there's a random dude doing another spoken word piece which is kind of hard to follow, but I think he warns of the dangers of drinking and the stigmas behind it. Basically an anti-fun rant from what I could hear. If you really want to hear the spoken pieces, use headphones and listen to one side at a time. Tito's got it right here, have fun, be yourself, and walk your own path. Definitely the most interesting track on the album. Most people wouldn't give this the time of day but the message is clear: Have fun, your life has just begun. Munchies note: I learned from listening to an old soundboard recording from 1987 this song's working title was, believe it or not, "Razor Clit." They should have kept the old lyrics and it would have been way more cool!

Biermacht is admittedly a strong crossover/thrash album with a laid back party vibe to it. While I think it barely holds a candle to the immaculate Shark Attack LP, there are more strong tracks than weak ones. The sound, however, is very in-your-face. This is not a subtle album by any means. As my band teacher would put it, the sound is not wide or flowing, it's more like being hit by a laser, very direct. While Shark Attack was incredibly fast and daring, it was also a tight performance with lower production values that sounded alive and breathing. Biermacht is near digital sounding and sometimes sloppy. Much of the sound is very compressed or too tight (Snappy drum sound, no reverb, guitars are sometimes overpowering).

You can also tell with this album, what songs were leftover from the early days and the newer cuts. This album reminds me of Killers by Iron Maiden. Killers was basically the leftover songs Steve Harris had written that didn't make it on the first Iron Maiden LP. Biermacht follows suit but on a less successful level. The new songs on Biermacht (YBMH, Drink Beer, Be Free, Balance of Opinion, Drink Jack, and Radical Dissection) are noticeable to a certain degree because they are not as strong as Gore Flix or Wehrmacht. It seems as though when they recorded Biermacht, the riff well went dry and they had to rely on older songs to make the album strong. Now in their defense, I think YBMH, DB, BF, and Radical Dissection are very strong. However the reliance on intros, outros, and the abominable section with the interlude and Drink Jack were an excuse to fill time on the LP (In the same manner on Dressed to Kill where Kiss put longer song lengths on the tracks than were actually on the LP). They may be a cop out way to fill time, but they work out in the end. The infamous E! is also here in three forms. The "song" is more cool for it's historical importance but I get a kick out of it every time. Originally conceived in 1985, E! is significant for starting the microsong trend with You Suffer, Dead, Your Achievement, In Extremis, Mega-Armageddon Death, the list goes on.

Biermacht continues with Wehrmacht's themes of social commentary, sinking suds, and horror. This is a very unique album which I had a hell of a time getting used to. Mainly because I worship the Shark Attack LP, it is not really fair to compare the two LPs because they are like apples and oranges. I honestly have never seen a thrash/crossover album like it. The tracklisting and flow is kinda odd but this is still classic Wehrmacht with a more drunken/stoner performance and vibe. Party on dudes! BIERMACHT!

The last album from Wehrmacht prior to their current reunion gigs, "Biermacht" saw the band maturing while still retaining their thrashcore roots. Released in mid-1988, "Biermacht" featured a slightly cleaner production than the one found on their debut album. To some fans this rendered the album with much less intensity, but to my ears the sound was still very powerful.

The massive reverb used on the first album made "Shark Attack" sound like a TRUE shark attack and only added to the overall intensity. This time around the drums are more compressed and some blast beat parts tend to get lost in the overall blur of things. But on the same token, the guitars are much sharper sounding. Marco Zorich and John Duffy were truly evolving as guitar heroes.

The only thing that kept me from giving "Biermacht" a full 100% are the funny bit songs. Sure, I love them and enjoy them, but it's just that I would've preferred another whole song instead of 3 or 4 mini-joke songs. A lot of the songs on "Biermacht" were leftovers from their demo days, including the phenomenal "Night Of Pain", one of my ALL TIME favorite thrash songs EVER, but newer stuff like "Radical Dissection" and "Balance Of Opinion" showed the band handling a more mainstream thrash sound somewhere in the middle of a Slayer/Kreator sound and Metallica/Megadeth. There is a certain progressiveness to those songs that hint to a more elaborate musical future.

I am so glad the guys are back and rumours abound that they are working on new stuff, but in the meantime you must check "Biermacht", one of the lost gems of the tharsh metal era from one of the precursors of the grindcore blast beat.

Biermacht is the second cult release by Wehrmacht and it came out two years after the debut, Shark Attack. The years have passed but the uncontrollable fury of this band remains unvaried, also on this new album. The production is far better than the one on the debut and this can only add a sense of power to the composition, without excluding the rawness this music always deserves. So, prepare for more violent crossover, with ultra fast tempo, schizophrenic vocals and essential riffs that point everything on the sheer speed. In this case, 26 minutes are sufficient for the band to take no prisoners and let all the rage come out.

“You Broke My Heart (So I Broke Your Face)” immediately shows what the album would be. The Spazztic Blurr influences are always evident and very heavy. The punk up tempo sections and the less impulsive ones are well-mixed together with lots of stop and go. The structures are essential but quite dynamic and sometimes the thrash metal puts the head out, like on the riffs of “Gore Flix”. The savage rolls, the fast palm muting and the mad vocals, everything contributes in rising the speed and violence even if we can always find a touch of humour; a typical thing of this genre. “Drink Beer Be Free” could be an example of this with those screams and the punk parts.

The melodic, epic introduction to “The Wehrmacht” is here to stay, like also the blast beats that follow. The various “Everb”, “Suck my Dick” and “Drink Jack” let the S.O.D. and M.O.D. influences emerge through the punk styled assault and the childish, funny lyrics. “Radical Dissection” and “Balance of Opinion” are the tracks that show a heavier approach to the genre with lots of thrash metal spores inside. There are even some calmer sections and the riffs are more various even if the peaks of the far more famous bands in this genre couldn’t be beaten. “Biermacht” has that ugly, dirty Motörhead oriented riff at the beginning to restart always on speed.

The quite murky voices of the outro put an end to this album. Well, all things considered, this album is a good follow-up to its precursor even if we are not talking about awesome releases. It’s a good slab of crossover, a violent and fast one but we remain on good levels. The production is good on this album even if the songs were better on Shark Attack. So, crossover/hardcore fans, get this album.

Okay, no matter what people say about the huge amount of humour on this album or the sloppy performance, this album breaths eighties crossover from start to finish and should be in any collection of metal heads who hold the eighties as dearly as I do. Back in those days it wasn’t about having the best production nor were all bands taking themselves too seriously like in the nineties when humour was hardly to be found in the metal scene anymore. It was about having a good time and turning gigs into a large party. Moshing and stagediving. Fuck security, fuck the rules and people who wanted to stand still and watch the band should therefor stay at the bar something. No place for whiners in the pit or in front. None of that shoegazing mentality.

Besides having one of the coolest song titles ever, opener “You Broke My Heart So I Broke Your Face” is also very fast, catchy, energetic and filled with ripping breaks and riffs. Songs such as “Munchies” and “Suck My Dick” combine quality old school crossover with a large dose of healthy humour in a way S.O.D. and the first M.O.D. had done earlier. Thrashers like “Night Of Pain” and “Radical Dissection” give the album an extra musically serious edge and the necessary variation which prevents the album from becoming too funny.

It’s not that they were the funniest bunch around (their side project Spazztic Blurr went a lot further), nor the tightest, nor the most original ones. But Wehrmacht did have their own specific sound (mostly because of the vocals and guitars). Especially after all these years it becomes obvious all crossover lovers and thrashers from those days do in fact have this album and hold it dearly. This is saying much of course. The album has historic importance as well as huge sentimental value. Biermacht is a landmark in eighties crossover thrash and should be checked out immediately by all newbies.

Wehrmacht are prototypical of the crossover of old: thrash mixed with hardcore elements, or vice versa, whereas nowadays metalcore is used to describe such, and crossover refers to bands that mix styles in general (usually with metal elements).

Wehrmacht, not one to take themselves too seriously, start off the album with the most brilliantly named song evar (in my humble opinion): You Broke My Heart (So I Broke Your Face). Starting rockin', then going into hardcore breakdowns and using thrash-elements along the way.

Wehrmacht are consistent in not being consistent. The next song, Gore Flix, starts off with some amazing riffing, then goes into your average thrash bridge where they push the speed to their limit, then back to those amazing riffs, and then they do alternate things constantly with breakdowns, bridges, throwing in a solo for good measure, and then back to step one.

This way Wehrmacht go along the album, from stunning riffing, cool solos, hardcore breakdowns, and now and then throwing in the odd sample (mostly the band themselves having fun with or about alcoholic beverages). If the band took themselves seriously, I might get annoyed by all this, but hey, it's Wehrmacht. And some of that guitarwork is really stunning darnit, and the solos..oh yeah..

I did expect more catchy 'sing-alongs', being called beercore and all, but this is more to mosh insanely to, too pissed off to notice the band goes to and fro in the music.

Some of the songs, like Night of the Pain, are simply great, and some songs, like 'Suck My Dick', are perhaps better spent on other people.

Overall, good clean fun. I would have really loved it if they had their moments of thrash-brilliance consistently instead of the hardcore breakdowns, but then again it wouldn't be Wehrmacht. Oh: and let's not forget this album has 'Everb', the longer version of 'E'.