ALBUM REVIEW: Ride The Apocalypse – Vitamin X
Amsterdam hardcore punk legends VITAMIN X follow up their frenetic 2018 album Age Of Paranoia with their new album, the even more frenetic Ride The Apocalypse, and it couldn’t have come at a more fitting time, as it seems as though an actual apocalypse could actually happen with all the chaos erupting all over the globe.
To combat this, the hardcore/crossover sonic assault with a message stylings of VITAMIN X works wonders in 2026, much as it did back in the 1980s, and VITAMIN X use their almost three decade experience as band to unleash an album that is very much in the spirit of those 1980s hardcore/crossover/thrash classics while still felling very much in the present.
Those days in the 80s were awash with a very real nuclear war paranoia (think the utterly harrowing must watch film Threads for full proof of this) and brilliantly soundtracked by a whole host of hardcore/crossover/thrash bands, with songs like Oblivion by D.R.I., Thermonuclear Warrior by CARNIVORE, Nuclear War by VOIVOD, Nuclear Future by CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER and of course, most of the material by NUCLEAR ASSAULT being prime examples of the feeling at the time, and it seems as if Vitamin X are continuing this lineage, which, pardon the pun, explosive results.
Ride The Apocalypse kicks off with the detonation that is the insanely catchy Chop Chop Chop, a song that comes to like an even more berzerk SUICIDAL TENDENCIES song. It undeniably starts as it means to go on, and that is with a huge eruption of energy and anger delivered with a huge sense of fun in there as well, and it doesn’t let up until the whole shebang has finished.
Rapid fire tracks like the MOTÖRHEAD-esque Unleash The Wolves, the title track of the album, and Sociopath keep those insane levels of energy up. Meanwhile, slight changes of pace, like Genetic Mutation and W.A.R. (which features the SUICIDAL-esque chant of “war inside my head” included in the songs lyrics), keep it eclectic, and it all results in an insanely listenable album, and one with a message of hope amongst the chaos at its core.
Sonically, massive riffs and stomping grooves are not only the order of the day but actually the order of the entire existence of VITAMIN X and they deliver on both counts constantly throughout this album. Ride The Apocalypse is VITAMIN X delivering the goods from start to finish, with those energy levels constantly on a high.
As the album reaches its conclusion with the still as energetic Fear, It Never Ends and Over The Line, is is clear that VITAMIN X have delivered the album of their career so far, reaching this apex over the course of the seventeen short, sharp, shock tracks on Ride The Apocalypse and if the unthinkable does happen, at least it has been soundtracked by this brilliant collection of thrashing hardcore bangers and we have had the pleasure of listening to it.
Rating: 8/10
Ride The Apocalypse is out now via Svart Records.
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