ALBUM REVIEW: Empire Of The Blind – Heathen
When you think of Bay Area thrash, you think of METALLICA, EXODUS and TESTAMENT. You might even think about DEATH ANGEL, MEGADETH and VIO-LENCE. If you’re really digging deep into the archives, you might even give the San Francisco quintet HEATHEN a nod. Whilst they’re undeniably inconsistent at maintaining a line-up and a steady flow of releases, they’ve always been your quintessential meat-and-potatoes eighties thrash act, throwing all the tropes that took the genre to new heights way back when.
On their first album in 11 years, HEATHEN continue to conjure up the thrift-store thrash that has trapped so many of their peers as they push themselves further in the past, rather than embrace the present. Empire Of The Blind is a fifty-minute frolic through the golden-age of thrash and the new wave of British heavy metal, which for the most part sounds like a band at the peak of their powers – the only problem is they’re getting stuck under their own self-imposed glass ceiling.
Thrash, more than most sub-genres in the heavy metal echelon, is subject to staleness and the tendency to tip-toe around progression in favour of past glories. It’s only been in the last decade or so that a handful of bands have riled up the rally cries and reinjected the passion and power that built the genre back in the day. Whereas POWER TRIP, HAVOK and VEKTOR have all embellished their evolutionary thrash with elements of hardcore and progressive music, bands like HEATHEN pander to the eagle-eyed elitists of the thrash metal community. Relentless bass drum beats and copious amounts of speed-shredding sum-up post-instrumental intro opener The Blight whilst The God Divides would slide comfortably onto a mixtape of eighties thrash favourites with its lop-sided solo-heavy structures and gang-vocal choruses (OVERKILL vibes, anyone?).
Admittedly, there are moments on Empire Of The Blind where HEATHEN surpass the expectations they’ve set of themselves and drift off, if only for a moment, into uncharted territory. A Fine Red Mist is as progressive as it gets, as the band double-back on the shredding in favour of compellingly complex structures whilst Shrine Of Apathy is more accustomed to modern-day DISTURBED than anything else with it’s melodic-rock muster and near-ballad hooks. In all honesty, these fleeting moments are all at the hands of guitarist Kragen Lum, who having joined in 2007, finally finds his feet within HEATHEN, implementing his knowledge and know-how of prog-rock to the band’s infrastructure. It’s a welcome boost that packs a little more into the punch of a performance that vocalist David White delivers at times.
If HEATHEN were a time capsule, Empire Of The Blind is truly only being dug up out of the trenches now, not just musically but lyrically too. Once again sticking to the stereotypes, social commentary is the catalyst for White’s rumbling rambles, tackling the typical topics of political party mishaps and the death of humanity at the hands of, wait…humanity. It’s all a bit been there, done that, worn the T-shirt for a genre that truly could say so much more with its musical immediacy. In fairness to HEATHEN, the majority of the album was written between 2012 and 2014 and put on the backburner before being picked up and dusted off in 2019, so it’s safe to say it’s suffering a little ring rust.
Empire Of The Blind is a terrific tribute to the golden-age of the Bay Area thrash metal movement, but it’s a little lacklustre in its contributions to thrash’s do-or-die battle with surviving the evolutionary storm.
Rating: 6/10
Empire Of The Blind is out now via Nuclear Blast Records.
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