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Who was baptized?


hrabia

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Maybe feel sorry for isn't the exact right phrase. There is a little of that too I suppose but maybe it's more like a two-handed facepalm when I find out that someone I know turns out to be a god believer, an avid churchgoer or unironically engages in prayer. I won't disown, disavow or disrespect them, I do have a few friends and rellies whom I suspect probably believe the bullshit. Not that I really care what others choose to believe but to be completely honest just between you and me, in my head I can't help but lose at least a little respect for their intellect and mental acuity. If this makes me an arrogant prick with a superiority complex well I can live with that.

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Interesting thread here. I grew up in a Unitarian Church which is kind of a non-religion of a variety of recovering Christians, Jews and everything in between that want a spiritual community without dogma. The idea is you bring whatever faith background you come from and embrace a group of humanitarian principals that are more or less secular. 

That said, I never had the desire to be a part of a religious community as my parents did and lean closer to Buddhism and have always called myself agnostic but not necessarily Atheist. I tend to think there might be something beyond the physical "self" but it is unknowable and I cannot define it as I don't know what the other thing is, or if it exits at all. 

Really, what I believe is that humans, the only animal -as far as we know-with knowledge of our own mortality create myths we call religion to remain sane with the anxiety that comes with the knowledge of our mortality. Most of us don't want to die, so we tie ourselves up knots avoiding the only thing we know is true for all of us. The party will be over sooner than we probably want.  

I do think many of the world religions have, at their base, kernels of metaphorical universal truths but are all forms of mythology. The problem, as I see it, is the human desire to believe these mythologies as literal truth and to control and organize human behavior. 

Religion might have some value to me as parable and metaphor but good ole fundamentalism has really fucked up the world.  Humans can be brainwashed at a young age to believe in just about anything as gospel. 

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Some people can't get through the day without booze, some can't do it without weed, some choose to believe in something that makes them feel good. I'm not going to fault a person for that even if they spend half the day talking to that imaginary person. Shit, I spend half the day talking to myself and I don't think I'm that crazy.

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I hate religion as much as I hate capitalism and globalisation- which is to say a lot.

 

 Ironically l love religious buildings as works of art and human ingenuity (especially Christian churches).

 

With regards to religion,  most overtly religious types I have met are over entitled, self righteous, often cruel, selfish and the biggest hypocrites I have met.  This includes not just Christians but Mormons, Hindus and Muslims as well.

And organised religion is a plague upon humanity.

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 No one should force people to be religious of course. Those who do have alot to answer for. If following a religion or any belief system for that matter helps said person live positively re themselves and others I say go for it. If that means they say broccoli sandwiches are god I say good for them. Obviously count duckula is in trouble re that 😂

This discussion will probably get locked soon. Probably good thing as it's ended up so confrontational.  

 

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I don't think it was confrontational at all. A bunch of people just stated their opinions, we're all adults here mostly and I thought it was all rather civil.

That said, the various churches or religions of the world have been trying to coerce and manipulate and force people into following their various religions for thousands of years under penalty of ostracism, torture, death and worse. Millions have been slaughtered through the ages in the names of various different ficticious sky faries. I agree with you 100% that those dirty scumbag cocksuckers have a lot to answer for.  Not that they will ever allow themselves to be held accountable.

No idea who count duckula might be though, is that a midlands thing?

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Religion in a free society where people are allowed to exercise free will is fine with me assuming there is no coercion or nationalized religion. I simply can't comprehend why individuals who aren't indoctrinated/read brainwashed into a belief system would choose to believe mythical stories as literal truth from ancient pre-scientific, pre age of enlightenment texts that have no basis in truth or science.

One religion in particular that I am fairly familiar with is predicated on the belief that the world was flat, heaven was a physical place approximately just beyond what we call the earth's atmosphere (just read online that 74% of Americans believe in heaven including my wife), below the earth, perhaps where know the earth's mantle to be was a physical place call hell. The bible apparently refers to the earth's atmosphere as the dividing line between the sky or space around earth and the physical location of heaven. 

Quote

Biblical authors imagined the earth as a flat place with Sheol below (the realm of the dead) and a dome over the earth that separates it from the heavens or sky above. Of course, we know the earth is not flat, and this three-tiered universe makes no sense to a modern mind. Even so, the concept of heaven (wherever it is located) continues in Christian theology as the place where God dwells and a theological claim that this world is not all that there is.

Years later, fundamentalists who claim that that bible is infallible due to a kind of-what-channeling God-otherwise referred to divine bullshit, I mean, revelation,  (real smooth move that might have convinced illiterate European peasants but believing such drivel today defies logic) conveniently moved the goal post and reinterpreted as heaven as more of a metaphysical place. This is where I have to call bullshit.

Let me get this straight, people. The bible is infallible and is to be believed as literal truth due to, ahem, divine revelation but somehow got the location of heaven wrong. It's not beyond the earth's "dome". Oh heaven is real, it actually is in a different dimension. That's along the lines of a certain politician who claims "we have to win, otherwise said election is rigged'". I love these semantical tricks that seem to fool millions. 

Sometimes you just have to call bullshit when you see it. 

Then, there is question of God.  Whose God? Which God? There are many versions of God-the God of Abraham is merely one, and that God clearly was created as myth by men who wanted their God to replicate their view of angry but "just" father figures dolling out rewards and punishments with the Hammurabi's code-Eye for an Eye, tooth for a tooth thing. 

I'm not a biblical Scholar but as far as I understand Christians believe in the myths of the old testament as well as the new testament and worship a God taken from Mesopotamian times-basically the first recorded human culture. 

I think here in 'Merica, a lot of people just don't want to think analytically. It's part of their culture. It's what they were taught. They want to take part in a faith community for baptisms and such. And many moderns go to church and turn their brains off and must know somewhere that this stuff is myth and doesn't follow logical sense. It's beyond stupid. 

At leas the Buddhists are open to science. They embrace it. They say, hey let's study what meditation actually does the brain. Guess what? It's really beneficial.  

 

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It's not that they don't want to think analytically Mark, it's that so many simply aren't capable of thinking for themselves.

Large groups of people seem to really want to believe in things that seem to be the consenus opinion in much the same way that guys like you are happy to buy consensus albums recommend to you without digging deeper to see for yourself. People want others to do the analytical heavy lifting for them and are happy to accept and trust the conclusions that are presented to them as the general consensus. This way there's no effort required, and they're not left out. Win/win.

People don't want to separate themselves from the crowd, they are desperate to agree and belong and fit in and be seen as "normal." They're more interested in being on the right side or the popular side or the winning side of things than they are concerned whether that right side is actually right to begin with. Especially when it comes to things like political ideology & religion where other people have strongly & deeply held beliefs that might get them into a confrontation if they were to disagree. Most people are naturally adverse to confrontation and will go out of their way to avoid it at all costs and would rather change their minds to agree even when it comes to their core beliefs rather than stand up for themselves and risk confrontation. This is how America has come to be so polarized as to red & blue, left & right. People on both sides would rather go along with the group think of their peers than risk setting themselves apart by exercising their grey matter and deciding things for themselves. 

People like me who are excessively irreverent and respect no institutions and whose natural instinct is to question absolutely everything and trust absolutely nothing that we haven't done the underlying calculations on ourselves, have historically been discredited, repressed and marginalized. There have always been some free thinking outliers, but it's only since the mid 20th century that the idea of a large scale "counterculture" has really taken off and gained a real foot hold in western society. This includes ideas like atheism and postmodernism. In centuries past people just believed what they were fucking told or they were ostracized and discredited or punished in some way. And traditionally that was always enough to keep the vast majority in line. 

So the big lie of religion: believe what we tell you and stay in the fold with us, do what you're told and stay on the right side if you don't want to go to an agonizing firey hell for all eternity...has worked so incredibly well for so long that amazingly even now in the 21st century some people are literally afraid to turn away from the superstitious voodoo nonsense we call religion lest they be condemned to an eternity of suffering in the firey depths of hell.

Political parties can only look on in awe and wish they had a lie that good to keep their flocks under control. This latest big lie about the election being stolen that was invented by a man who was himself using it in an attempt to steal the election, has been a very good one that has worked unbelievably well and galvanized a legion of right wing morons into a solid deplorable unit of unshakable ignorance and unrivaled stupidity. It's been the biggest and most successful political lie since Hitler's which resulted in the Holocaust. But even both of these lies pale massively in comparison to the original big lie of god & religion, heaven & hell.

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I think there's something even more subversive and toxic at play, which is that the idea of "faith" has become perversely valorized as a way to display strength of character by publicly rejecting evidence. Religion here has been rebranded as the ultimate in rebellion and freedom of thought. I saw this happening as a kid in the bible belt 30 odd years ago, and now it's everywhere. That's the identity people are buying into - them and their threatened community in possession of special knowledge and secret truth, against a powerful world order. Doesn't matter that it's a complete inversion of the way things actually are, at least here in the USA. They think they are thinking critically. Posts like these are just more evidence that they're right.

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

It's not that they don't want to think analytically Mark, it's that so many simply aren't capable of thinking for themselves.

Large groups of people seem to really want to believe in things that seem to be the consenus opinion in much the same way that guys like you are happy to buy consensus albums recommend to you without digging deeper to see for yourself. People want others to do the analytical heavy lifting for them and are happy to accept and trust the conclusions that are presented to them as the general consensus. This way there's no effort required, and they're not left out. Win/win.

 

On the music front, it's more about needing filters to sort out unlimited data points. Between what I garner from my online forum friends, personal recommendations, blogs, lists and the like keeps me perfectly happy and gives me tons of music. I can only process so much.

That, and it's less important or significant a part of my life than it is to you. It's important, but it's just a corner in my life. Listening and following heavy music-I don't even say I listen to metal, which is actually my largest genre, but listening to heavy music wouldn't be something that would go in my obituary as defining my time on earth. 

3 minutes ago, markm said:

On the music front, it's more about needing filters to sort out unlimited data points. Between what I garner from my online forum friends, personal recommendations, blogs, lists and the like keeps me perfectly happy and gives me tons of music. I can only process so much.

That, and it's less important or significant a part of my life than it is to you. It's important, but it's just a corner in my life. Listening and following heavy music-I don't even say I listen to metal, which is actually my largest genre, but listening to heavy music wouldn't be something that would go in my obituary as defining my time on earth. 

Honestly, I can go through some of the more "underground" lists online and the year end lists from you, Navy, Hungarino, Zack, Surge, Sheol, etc. and get a pretty good idea what some of the better obscure dark, raw albums are. You guys post many of the same albums anyway. Bingo-I go there and see what I like and what I don't. And my BC feed. So, it's a little more than just going to NCS, Metal Injection and AMG. I'll also listen to a few podcasts along the way.

But back to subject-I think I was baptized back in the day.  

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Yeah, an inversion is right. It's fucking backwards bizzaro world. They've flipped it all around to where wrong is right, up is down, black is white. These types love to condemn the rest of us for being sheep who are being conned and can't see the truth when clearly they're the ones who are being lied to and led to even more preposterous and completely illogical and implausible conclusions. It's like they have totally lost the ability along with any desire to think for themselves which is precisely what they accuse everyone else of.

But in fairness I can see people being conned and lied to on all sides. I blame for profit media that are chasing dollars instead of hunting for the truth. They've figured out that it's so much easier and pays a lot better to just tell people what they want to hear over and over than it does to put in any actual work to find and bring us the truth. Every information source large and small alike seems to be feeding us some combination of lies and half truths and making lots of convenient omissions to bolster their arguments and pander to their viewers/readers desire for confirmation and validation. No side abstains from this disingenuous M.O. It's gotten to the point where those of us who might want the truth have no way to know who they can actually trust to give it to them straight.

Most people no longer seem interested in reading or hearing anything that won't confirm whatever they've already decided they want to believe. And that's across the board with everything in life, not just with religion and politics. So that's where we are as a society now. Inching closer to Idiocracy every day. I find it frustrating and enraging. Metal is my sanctuary from the nonsense. 

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1 hour ago, markm said:

On the music front, it's more about needing filters to sort out unlimited data points. Between what I garner from my online forum friends, personal recommendations, blogs, lists and the like keeps me perfectly happy and gives me tons of music. I can only process so much.

That, and it's less important or significant a part of my life than it is to you. It's important, but it's just a corner in my life. Listening and following heavy music-I don't even say I listen to metal, which is actually my largest genre, but listening to heavy music wouldn't be something that would go in my obituary as defining my time on earth. 

Honestly, I can go through some of the more "underground" lists online and the year end lists from you, Navy, Hungarino, Zack, Surge, Sheol, etc. and get a pretty good idea what some of the better obscure dark, raw albums are. You guys post many of the same albums anyway. Bingo-I go there and see what I like and what I don't. And my BC feed. So, it's a little more than just going to NCS, Metal Injection and AMG. I'll also listen to a few podcasts along the way.

But back to subject-I think I was baptized back in the day.  

I was really just talking about human nature, how people in general these days want to be handed things without having to do any of the work themselves. Time is money after all. A job in the mail room? Fuck that shit, I wanna be the god damned CEO!! Just gimme the Cliff Notes, just gimme the conclusions, gimme the answers. Cut to the chase, just tell me who wins. Just give me a best of album where some jackass in a suit decides for me which songs are the best. Let Spotify or Bandcamp suggest something for me. Was just making a comment on society in general, not meant as a personal attack on you Marky Mark.

My unhealthy obsession with hearing, touching, tasting, trying everything for myself and my absolute refusal to take anyone's word for anything ever goes far beyond music and is not what I recommend as the best way for everyone else to live their lives. It's just how I am wired, my personal insanity if you will. I can't be any other way, this is just how I am. I have accepted this and all I can do is hope others will understand.

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I don't know what it's like down under but here in the good ole US of A religion is being used as a divisive weapon and I am going to denounce it at any opportunity. Religion has marketed themselves as love, but yet historically speaking in reality religion has been the single biggest force for evil and destruction and harm in the world. People can and will believe whatever they like obviously, they don't need me to tell them that or my permission. But understand, I don't view religion as this passive harmless thing at all like many people seem to. Religion = harm. So from a non-doctrinated outsider's perspective I can't help but yell out "Wake up and pull you head out!!" to those I see being duped and deceived by con men. I would only hope that others would show me the same concern if they saw me being harmed.

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I distinguish the pretty massive difference between the hierarchy of organized religion and the individuals who started them before (maybe) they were corrupted. Those individuals who recognized humans were behaving in completely fucked up dysfunctional ways and offered a better path. Like, I actually vibe on the notion of the man Jesus as a wandering hippie talking to people about being compassionate  towards other people, helping the poor and  hanging out with prostitutes and lepers. I just reject the whole divinity thing so that, virgin birth, and resurrection pretty much exes me out of Christianity. But what I believe the message of the man to have been before it was distorted by the Catholic church is quite beautiful. It's basic-Don't treat people like shit.  Help people out. Share the wealth.

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I don't know what it's like down under but here in the good ole US of A religion is being used as a divisive weapon and I am going to denounce it at any opportunity. Religion has marketed themselves as love, but yet historically speaking in reality religion has been the single biggest force for evil and destruction and harm in the world. People can and will believe whatever they like obviously, they don't need me to tell them that or my permission. But understand, I don't view religion as this passive harmless thing at all like many people seem to. Religion = harm. So from a non-doctrinated outsider's perspective I can't help but yell out "Wake up and pull you head out!!" to those I see being duped and deceived by con men. I would only hope that others would show me the same concern if they saw me being harmed.

Religion itself is not hugely different between the countries in that we have the similar groups and religions, but ours are not as prominent in everything as they seem to be in the US. We do have outspoken groups but they are a minority, and really don't impact our every day way of life the way the media shows us it happens in the US.

So yeah there is difference between how religions are practised between the two countries, but their is also differences between how they are perceived. In my mind there is no excuse for fundamentalist, or people that use religion as an excuse to be shitty to each other, but because we don't have to put up with it like we keep seeing America does (and I realise our news services will taint some of the news they present) I don't see religion as a problem, it's the people who are the problem.

Therefore I also don't care if the person next to me is sitting there talking to their god, asking for guidance or even just praying because it makes them feel better. What I do care about is that someone else sees the need to belittle, berate, or just down right ridicule the person because that's what they choose to do. What I do see in this country is heaps of normally quiet people poking their heads out of the sand just to abuse someone who does have a religion, or spirituality. The majority of the time the people they are picking on pose them no threat, and in many cases they don't even know them, but a single mention of religion and it brings these people out just to be shitty to someone.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Exclusion and intolerance is a key point to any religion.  If you acknowledge other religions are valid, then you are automatically invalidating your own beliefs as you are openly admitting the other guys interpretation of the world could be right and yours wrong.  And given core purpose of religion is to to define the world and give meaning to it, admitting yours might not be right automatically destroys it.

 

And religions that no longer offer a "concrete" interpretation of the world die.  Look at the decline of more conventional and more tolerant Protestant Christian churches in Australia.  They are selling churches left right and centre. Indeed one local Baptist church is selling all their churches as they have said they have very few parishioners and their main customers are Muslim and Hindu refugees (mainstream churches in Australia are now the main delivery mechanism for many government services - don't get me started)!

 

Meanwhile you have massive growth of new hardline Pentecostal and other more fundamentalist Christian churches as well as Mormons who preach "truth" ie their belief system is the only relevant one and everything else is falsehood.

 

---

Also amazing but you don't need fundamentalism to wage slaughter over religion.  The idiots that destroyed my country (Yugoslavia) were all nominally religious but were really ex-Communists who wanted to carve up new kingdoms for themselves.

Their flunkies and the common people who supported them and murdered their own neighbours were the same - not that religious!

There is no real cultural difference between a Serb, a Croat or a Bosnian Muslim except the sky fairy they believe in (and by 1980s most people weren't that religious after 45 years of socialist secularism).   Indeed a Croat from Zagreb is culturally, linguistically and even ethnically more similar to a Serb from Belgrade than a Croat from the Dalmatian coast. 

 

But give people a reason and sufficiently reduce the risk-return ratio and you'll have even the most ardent secular type slaughtering for their god.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/22/2022 at 12:45 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I don't think it was confrontational at all. A bunch of people just stated their opinions, we're all adults here mostly and I thought it was all rather civil.

That said, the various churches or religions of the world have been trying to coerce and manipulate and force people into following their various religions for thousands of years under penalty of ostracism, torture, death and worse. Millions have been slaughtered through the ages in the names of various different ficticious sky faries. I agree with you 100% that those dirty scumbag cocksuckers have a lot to answer for.  Not that they will ever allow themselves to be held accountable.

No idea who count duckula might be though, is that a midlands thing?

Ok so not controntational yet but below quote could have created a very negative set of discussions. 

On 1/17/2022 at 9:35 PM, Dead1 said:

 

And organised religion is a plague upon humanity.

This is a spark for creating a potentially very negative discussion. Sure it didn't go down that road. I can say for Christians anyone doing bad in Christs name is not part of the group no matter how high up they are, in fact the new testament points that out many times very clearly. From my understanding its a peaceful religion youve only got to read the new testament to see that. . When Peter took up arms in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus ordered Peter put his sword down even though he knew he was to be crucified. Violence is not part of it. Christians are counter cultural were told to love our enemies for instance which is not easy.   Are Christians Martin Luther king, William wilburforce(brought about end of slavery in Britain),GK Chesterton(who wrote strongly against the eugenics movement in Britain and an immediate critic of hitler).  a plague against humanity. I'd say not. 

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4 minutes ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Ok so not controntational yet but below quote could have created a very negative set of discussions. 

This is a spark for creating a potentially very negative discussion. Sure it didn't go down that road. I can say for Christians anyone doing bad in Christs name is not part of the group no matter how high up they are, in fact the new testament points that out many times very clearly. From my understanding its a peaceful religion youve only got to read the new testament to see that. . When Peter took up arms in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus ordered Peter put his sword down even though he knew he was to be crucified. Violence is not part of it. Christians are counter cultural were told to love our enemies for instance which is not easy.   Are Christians Martin Luther king, William wilburforce(brought about end of slavery in Britain),GK Chesterton(who wrote strongly against the eugenics movement in Britain and an immediate critic of hitler).  a plague against humanity. I'd say not. 

If you're concerned about having a negative or confrontational discussion, why bring this back up after it died down? 

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1 hour ago, blaaacdoommmmfan said:

Ok so not controntational yet but below quote could have created a very negative set of discussions. 

This is a spark for creating a potentially very negative discussion. Sure it didn't go down that road. I can say for Christians anyone doing bad in Christs name is not part of the group no matter how high up they are, in fact the new testament points that out many times very clearly. From my understanding its a peaceful religion youve only got to read the new testament to see that. . When Peter took up arms in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus ordered Peter put his sword down even though he knew he was to be crucified. Violence is not part of it. Christians are counter cultural were told to love our enemies for instance which is not easy.   Are Christians Martin Luther king, William wilburforce(brought about end of slavery in Britain),GK Chesterton(who wrote strongly against the eugenics movement in Britain and an immediate critic of hitler).  a plague against humanity. I'd say not. 

Not saying all Christians are bad.  Most are just people who are all various shades of grey.  I specifically said "organised religion."
 

Religious writings are just one part of any religion.  There's things like practices, rituals, and tacit unwritten understandings.  Eg there's nothing in the Bible about Christmas trees or incorporating pagan festivals like Easter but hey there an actual part of Christianity.  

And even if you just look at  writings such as the bible, it is completely against women and LGBTIQ+.   Homosexuality is explicitly banned in the bible and there's so many references to women being submissive.

Koran (and related Haddith's) are even worse when it comes to gender rights.

Christianity/Islam etc might have been a good way of regulating society up to 1200s but we have increasingly figured out their limitations and destroyed many of the key tenants of these books.

Both of these religions have been used as justification or have been primary reason behind much human barbarity and cruelty up to and including the modern era.

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At the risk of really inciting some ugly comments…

It seems deeply ironic the American right wing cling to Christianity when Jesus, the focal point of that religion, would best be described as progressive left. Bottom line is shitty people use organised religion to exploit, oppress, and divide. Decent people are so because they choose to be kind, not because a book tells them to.

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    • Full length number 19 from overkill certainly makes a splash in the energy stakes, I mean there's some modern thrash bands that are a good two decades younger than Overkill who can only hope to achieve the levels of spunk that New Jersey's finest produce here.  That in itself is an achievement, for a band of Overkill's stature and reputation to be able to still sound relevant four decades into their career is no mean feat.  Even in the albums weaker moments it never gets redundant and the energy levels remain high.  There's a real sense of a band in a state of some renewed vigour, helped in no small part by the addition of Jason Bittner on drums.  The former Flotsam & Jetsam skinsman is nothing short of superb throughout "The Wings of War" and seems to have squeezed a little extra out of the rest of his peers.

      The album kicks of with a great build to opening track "Last Man Standing" and for the first 4 tracks of the album the Overkill crew stomp, bash and groove their way to a solid level of consistency.  The lead work is of particular note and Blitz sounds as sneery and scathing as ever.  The album is well produced and mixed too with all parts of the thrash machine audible as the five piece hammer away at your skull with the usual blend of chugging riffs and infectious anthems.  


      There are weak moments as mentioned but they are more a victim of how good the strong tracks are.  In it's own right "Distortion" is a solid enough - if not slightly varied a journey from the last offering - but it just doesn't stand up well against a "Bat Shit Crazy" or a "Head of a Pin".  As the album draws to a close you get the increasing impression that the last few tracks are rescued really by some great solos and stomping skin work which is a shame because trimming of a couple of tracks may have made this less obvious. 

      4/5
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