Presage of Disaster

Before its hostile takeover of international death metal in the 90s, and then becoming what is arguably the capital of metal music worldwide, Sweden was relatively quiet on the scene. There was quite a healthy amount of melodic hard rock and early power metal, but as far as thrash...not so much. This is part of what makes Presage of Disaster such a gem, another in a long line of good to masterful Noise Records releases.

Midas Touch is best described as a band who followed the style of technical German thrash (Mekong Delta, Deathrow, Destruction, Vendetta, etc) but with a dash of Metallica thrown in for good measure. After a fitting into, "Forcibly Incarcerated" arrives with a loopy synthesizer and an acoustic passage, and then let the thrash begin! A mosh pit begins to stir below the choppy lead scales. "Sinking Censorship" targets the rather obvious Parental Music Resources Center and its tyrannical crusade to cock block the 1st amendment (and what 80s thrash album would be complete without such a loving tribute?) "When the Boot Comes Down" is a slower track, Patrick Wiren's accent during the cleaner vocal sections is quite funny, but the song is decent. "True Believers Inc." covers yet another typical thrash subject of the 80s: the TV evangelist. Some of the best material on the album comes later on the album. "Aceldama - Terminal Breath" is perhaps the best known track, with its trilly intro riff and start/stop verse, and the chorus breakdown.

The album closer "Subhumanity (A New Cycle)" is another of the best, with some great leads and a nice trudging verse riff. Other good songs include "Accessory Before the Fact", "Sepulchral Epitaph" and the acoustic instrumental "Lost Paradise".

This has a pretty solid mix for an older thrash record, the guitars may seem a little thin but this works well in conjunction with Wiren's nasally mid-range vocals, giving the album that anesthetic tech thrash feel akin to Mekong Delta or later Deathrow. There are a lot of good riffs and the bass really goes to work under them. The lyrics aren't perfect but for the time they were intelligent enough; bands had some serious subject matter in those days. Today you are lucky if a thrash band even sounds pissed off at all. Presage of Disaster may not be on my short list for top thrash metal albums in history, but it was a well-constructed bruiser of an album for its day, and still sounds almost relevant to my ears now. Unfortunately, the 2nd album So Shall You Reap was never finished, so this was pretty much a one-shot career. But you can track down a few tunes from that hypothetical sophomore effort on their MySpace page, and they sound good.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

“…destroy! You cry if foreigners don’t understand…”

Mildly lost to memory in name, sound, and core is Midas Touch and their one-off record compliments of the stalwart, though getting-tired Noise label. An eleven-tracker (well, eight really), Presage of Disaster is one of those thinly celebrated and periodically spiraling slabs that had an aspiration to baste thrash’s old gold standard in a swirling, aromatic gravy meant to make things more tasteful than wastrel for the ‘other’ thrash fans. Yep, musicians who really knew their way around their instruments wanted to stand and be counted, and can you blame them? And with honor they held their chins high. Nevertheless, like much of the late ‘80s crop, the band named after the fictitious Greek king manages this recipe distantly and anonymously.

Progressively active, this lp sloshes through Sweden’s sleet with feet capable of running intricately slushy circles around the more pretenseless heat the likes of Mortal Sin, Infernal Majesty, and Demolition Hammer generate. But of course it’s ‘89, and the maw of more advanced and complex metal is wider than ever, but as this lp travels on one will find the quintet isn’t entrenched in thrash’s high-minded scientific ideals, though they do anything but dismiss it. It’s more like an amalgam of not wanting to rehash the same velocity-spiked disorder of bands past. Simultaneously, in their wisdom they comprehend that even the most dazzling display of metal can become convoluted, forced, and erratic if played without some solid structuring. So they blend, fuse, and rototill these sub-styles until they can cruise across the playground at top speed, eagerly pounce through the nearby obstacle course, and then bust a vein in another hair-whipping jaunt. Sure, when faced with the bionically engineered iceballs thrown by the bionically induced Watchtower, Megadeth, and even Juggernaut’s Trouble Within lp, it’s pretty clear Midas Touch isn’t the opening declaration in tech thrash. But I don’t think they mind, ‘cause in the view of evolution, these tunes seem to favor the older, time-tested mindset of the fading genre.

Juggling temperaments with fairly professional poise, tracks like the USA-decrying “Accessory Before the Fact”, tastefully afflicted “When the Boot Comes Down”, somewhat spazzy “True Believers Inc.” (and momentarily razzled by strangely futuristic, buzzy keyboards), and “Subhumanity (A New Cycle)” (embellished by outside narrative toward the end, yet during the song) meet at the bridge of mid-tech and mentally-amped. This, to the abstruse-minded, is the tasteful stuff.

For those fidgeting restlessly on the breakneck side of the fence, fastballs “Aceldama-Terminal Breath”, “Sinking Censorship” (the oh-so-valuable PMRC the premise, back when they were all the stink), “Forcibly Incarcerated” with its blast beat-ish temper, and rakish excerpts from “Sepulchral Epitaph” are more the wake-up cup of grog, and to the same mind is the wastrel.

Then there’s always the vice-versa angle (hint: switch the last sentence from both paragraphs).

Tripping things up are the vocals of Patrick Wiren, original brainstormer of Misery Loves Co.. Etched with unremarkable hardcore-tinged complacency where even aggravation finds nary a foothold, his placidly passionate delivery throws a dog chain around the potential of these songs and wraps it around a fencepost too far out of earshot.

By the end, Presage of Disaster performs fairly well while drawing energy from both power cells even if some priority is given to the style’s grittier perspective.

And about those three songs that aren’t really songs – side-starters “The Arrival” and “Reminiscence”, both imperceptible film snippet intros, are worthless to anyone who didn't actually star in those movies, meanwhile the wordless, minute long “Lost Paradise” is neither thoughtful, passionate, intense, or worth finding. I don’t know why they even bothered with it.