Alligator
Cerebral Implosion

It is known that our domestic metal has never really taken hold in its homeland. Metal's foreign admiration has always claimed great victims, only to regret it when groups ignored by us were praised abroad.

At the end of the '80s and the beginning of the '90s, even in Italy there was a decent thrash metal scene that modernized what was good from two pillars of the Italian thrash-death movement of the '80s, such as Bulldozer and Necrodeath. This movement included Extrema, Broken Glazz, Insidia, Braindamage, Kaos Lord, Headcrasher, Jester Beast, and indeed Alligator.
Apart from Extrema and Braindamage, what remains from this list are memories left on CDs, some of which are already unobtainable.

ALLIGATOR, formed in Vigevano in 1988, debuted with "IMMORTAL ENTITY" released in 1991. The album clearly has a Bay-area matrix. The next step is this "CEREBRAL IMPLOSION" released in 1994. Our guys change direction so much that the album upon its release was defined as the Italian "Arise". Indeed, the points in common with Sepultura's masterpiece are many, just listen to the opening 'CEREBRAL IMPLOSION'.

But it would be wrong to dismiss the album as a simple copy of "Arise". If you continue listening, you can encounter songs that, along with the classic thrash riff and some acoustic openings in Sepultura style, add that Groove which the Brazilians themselves will pick up again from "Chaos A.D." onwards. SKELETONS' BEACH, DRINKING MILK FROM MY KNEESS and NATURAL VICTIMS are a good example of this.

Gianluca Melino's voice, an emulator of Cavalera from the early '90s, is powerful and certainly one of the best voices of the genre in the limited Italian scene. The guitar duo formed by Francesco Capasso (that KILLA whom we will later find in Zona and MIURA) and Tiziano Colombi pepper the album with excellent riffs and solos. More structured songs like LULLABY FOR THE UNBORN and TARANTULA are great examples of Alligator's ability to move from fast, almost hardcore tempos to mid-paced, heavy cadences and acoustic, melodic atmospheres. Completing it all is Dario Capasso's bass and Andrea Bellazzi's drums. Finally pleasant is the cover of HELP by the Beatles reinterpreted in a Thrash-Core style.

Alligator will continue their career until 1996, the year of the release of the more Pantera-influenced "RULES", and then disband with the various members engaged in other projects. Somewhere, on the net, I had read about an upcoming reunion of theirs, if anyone knows anything...