DEMOLITION HAMMER - "Tortured Existence" CD

Imported from Kill Again Records (Brazil)

OFFICIAL CD REISSUE

I have seen this legendary death/thrash metal album described as "UNRELENTING VIOLENCE" and I couldn't think of a more fitting choice of words. It's painful to even utter the word "thrash" when you're describing these guys; they make Metallica and Testament sound like elevator music by comparison. You will look like the poor bastard on the cover at the finish of the album. It's that intense!

Recorded at the legendary Morrisound Studios and originally released in 1990 by Century Media. This 2024 OFFICIAL reissue comes housed in a jewel case with slipcase and extensive booklet + bonus live tracks.

MANDATORY IN YOUR COLLECTION!

Demolition Hammer is perhaps best known for their ballistic 1992 thrash-fest “Epidemic of Violence.” And for a good reason too – it encapsulated everything the genre stood for, and was the true realization of the heavier, more death-metal influenced thrash that sprouted in the late 80's and early 90's. However, two years prior, the New Yorkers have already left an immense crater in the extreme thrash underground with their explosive 1990 debut “Tortured Existence”. While there are fundamental similarities and differences between the two albums, this is a classic in its own right. “Tortured Existence” is an album brimmed with punkish aggression, many crunchy thrash riffs, and is a catchy, structurally and lyrically unconventional, and ultimately fun and enthusiastic thrash deliverance.

Often noted regarding Demolition Hammer's style is the merging of death metal influences in their thrash template. However, I feel “Tortured Existence” is much more hardcore influenced than their more death-metal tinged follow up. I don't know about you, but I feel there is definitely a “New York” sound. Compared to their more melodic, technical and sterile Bay Area brethren, or the darker Teutonic thrash, East Coast thrash is often more raw, bassy, crunchy, and hardcore punk-influenced; though one may feel there is little in common between Demolition Hammer or Anthrax and Overkill. Whenever I listed to “Tortured Existence”, I imagine four jeans-and-high-top clad thrashers tearing it up in some NYC junkyard or construction site with skyscrapers and traffic in the background, on a busy summer day. The unique character and sound present on this album – the binding of thrash, death metal and hardcore elements – I feel is one of the things that makes it so great.

The gritty, heavy as hell, death-metal-esque production, courtesy of Scott Burns, delivers a massive crunch with its warm, bass-heavy guitar tone. Comparable is the production heard on Exhorder's “Slaughter in the Vatican”, also produced by Scott Burns and released the same year. Steve Reynolds' clangy bass guitar is much more audible, heavy and full here than their follow up. He also adds in his own nuances, as heard in “Cataclysm,” and briefly in “Infectious Hospital Waste.” The double-bass/blast-beat junkie and aficionado Vinny Daze (RIP) puts on an amazingly precise drum performance. The drum production is what you'd come to expect from Scott Burns, clicky and triggered, but still pretty heavy, though it could be a little higher in the mix. Vinny never sticks to a single style, pattern or tempo, as he knows exactly when to throw in slower grooves and when to hit you over the head with more meat-and-potatoes thrashing, especially when compared to their follow up album where he shows a more consistently ballistic fest of hyper-rapid snare and kick-drum destruction.

Axemen James Reilly and Derek Sykes deliver ridiculously expressive riff onslaughts that are often vivid and full of colorful character. Their blunt riff-work is highly memorable – they never have to rely on repetition of riffs or simplistic, predictable structures, as they refrain a section or chorus maybe twice per song. The structures often string together multitudes of varying riffs and expressive solos, especially during rather lengthy and extended bridge sections between vocal parts. I'm not saying this is necessarily the more tame of their first two LPs, as it is not tame by any means, but here they let the expression of the riff-work and punkish vocals do the speaking for the most part, rather than relentlessly beat you over the head with a ballistic, tremolo-picked death-thrash maelstrom like they do on their next album. This is best heard on the immensely catchy “Infectious Hospital Waste” and “Gelid Remains”. Something that sets Demolition Hammer apart from other brutal thrash bands at the time is their soloing rhetoric – they showcase more traditional major and minor keys with an airy melodic prose to them, rather than churn out pure chromatic insanity.

Compared to “Epidemic of Violence”, Steve Reynolds' vocals are more or less the same. However, here he shows a slightly more straightforward, punkish snarl; less nasily and less Morbid Saint-influenced. Another Demolition Hammer signature is the gang-shouted vocals, which is more flaunted on this album than the next. Their lyrics are often in large masses, with rapid, Dark Angel-esque vocal delivery and little emphasis on rhyming. The lyrical topics at hand are all highly unconventional and utterly unique to the genre; often fun and rather light-hearted in its uniqueness comparably. Respectively through the album's nine tracks, the lyrics deal with a botched suicide inexplicably curing one's debilitating germophobia, neanderthals and evolution, cryogenic hibernation, the plague, toxic environmental impact of waste, death by rabid canines, biological weaponry, warfare, and global warming. Unique lyrical content that break traditional thrash clichés is something I always welcome, and it comes full force here.

Upon the first few listens, one can't help but feel that the material is so riff-dense that it is sometimes easy to overlook what particular song is what, as they may blend together with their similar sounding nature. When compared to “Epidemic of Violence”, the thrash breaks aren't as sudden or spastic, the riff pallet, although varied and hefty, isn't as numerous. Here you can hear an ambitious and thrash-hungry group, loaded with riffs and ideas, still perfecting their glorious craft. “Infectious Hospital Waste”, “Gelid Remains”, and “Hydrophobia” are by far the most memorable and standout tracks, whereas everything else pummels you in similar fashion. These songs are all great, enthusiastically and arduously crafted, but are sometimes hard to recall, even after several listens. All is forgivable in my book – because at the end of the day they are a thrash band focused on shoving buckets of great riffs down your throat, and are more riff-based than song-based, the way brutal-thrash should be.

I prefer “Epidemic of Violence” to this by a very small margin – the songs on that album are a little more memorable and discernible among one another, as it's easy to get lost in “Tortured Existence's” vast sea of riffs. However, an ambitious volume of riffs is rarely a bad thing if the band in question is pumping out quality, which Demolition Hammer certainly does. For its cross between thrash, hardcore, and death metal with unique lyrics and riff-dense structures, “Tortured Existence” is an album with a mind and unique character and style of it's own, for that I definitely recommend checking it out. Also recommended is their legendary follow up “Epidemic of Violence” as well as their demos, which have unreleased material. Demolition Hammer were one of the last great thrash bands in the early 1990's, and are an untouchable treasure within the underground metal community. - Metal Archives review