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Razor: Decibels
18/08/11 || Habakuk
If you, like me, wonder what happened during the mid-nineties and would prefer an alternate reality where thrash would not have died woefully because everybody suddenly thought they had to “evolve” their sound and bring in other influences, give a listen to this album. Released in 1997, it really towers above what the established big acts had been doing across the globe: Brazil was pretty much lost for classic thrash after 1996’s “Roots”, the USA saw “Cryptic writings” move Megadeth away from thrash and “Re-load” adding insult to injury, plus Slayer chiming in with the ill-fated one year later with “Diabolus in Musica”, which wasn’t much better. It wasn’t just the big acts, but also more underground acts like Sadus who completely lost it. Hell, do you even know the name of Testament’s 1997 album? Over in Germany, once a thrash bastion, Kreator, who made little secret of their progression, released the subpar “Outcast”, Tankard shat out “Disco Destroyer” in ’98, which brought absolutely nothing to the table apart from its title, and Sodom had already tried to be all punk and shit, at least staying mediocre in the process. So yeah, we had to rely on Canada.
Over in snowy Canuck country, Dave Carlo, former guitarist of already disbanded act Razor, decided to reform the band and basically do the same thing all over again. Now wait, that doesn’t sound especially creative! – Correct, but that is the point here. I’m not sure what that tells about Canada, but the album sounds like they had locked themselves in a basement since 1991’s “Open Hostility” and didn’t even know that they were playing what was basically a dead style: Foot-to-the-floor thrash that doesn’t care much about its surroundings and is to be played LOUD. Conveniently, what did change was that they apparently could get themselves a punchier production, and this album does indeed sound thicker than their earlier stuff. Yes, the drums are triggered, but apart from one double-bass-only intro, that is neglectable. What’s not neglectable is that 7 out of these 10 tracks are nested conveniently in the fast midtempo to uptempo range and catchy at that, which makes this album a real headbanging feast. Sure, variety is not exactly the most important aspect of the disc, but as a fan of the style, I couldn’t care less.
One might ask now: Why bother with this album if it’s doing the same others (and Razor themselves) have done before? A valid question indeed, fan or not, I’m not going to go out and buy shit I’ve heard before thousands of times. My answer is two-fold: a) Dave Carlo. The guy plays a simple, but pretty trademark style of thrash riffery that is easily recognizable as “Foken A, Razor!”, and together with Bob Reid’s angry snarling, it forms a wickedly pissed-off mixture that can keep a two-riff song awesome from start to finish. If a non-stop chug asskicker like “Open hostility” with rare, but super-effective triplet insertion leaves you cold, get the fuck out of my review.
Okay, fair enough – but why not just go for the “old” Razor then? That’s where b) comes into play: The newer production just makes it sound a lot more up to date and digestible than the old material which always suffered from shortcomings like a drum computer on the nevertheless highly recommended lightning speed ’92 album, or way too low 80s production jobs on basically every other disc, which were absolutely no match for the always bad-ass musical delivery.
In a way, things came together for the band on here, which was obviously way, way too late to have any sort of impact – Good thing musical quality isn’t affected by how many people it reaches. One thing is certain though, if this album reaches you as a thrash aficionado, there won’t be no losers.
- Information
- Released: 1997
- Label: Hypnotic Records
- Website: Razor MySpace Fan site
- Band
- Bob Reid: vocals
- Dave Carlo: guitars
- Jon Armstrong: bass
- Rich Oosterbosch: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Decibels
- 02. Jimi the fly
- 03. Life sentence
- 04. Liar
- 05. The game
- 06. Great white lie
- 07. Open hostility
- 08. Ninedead
- 09. Goof soup
- 10. Violence…gun control
