Destruction
Eternal Devastation

Once upon a time, within the green borders of beerland... Ahem...

No no, sorry... This isn't really a fairy tale.

That is, unless a fairy tale is allowed to speak only of the bad guys, because the Destruction were without a doubt "The Bad Guys"!

Born in Lorrach (the town of "Lilac that wants") in 1983, when Scorpions, Axes, Runners, and Gravediggers were defining the rawest and hardest music Germany had to offer, they represented, for the time, the most unpredictably aggressive and instinctively violent music their homeland had proposed.

I've always thought that the extreme aggressiveness and immense sonic violence of the other two bands belonging to the "Sacred Triad" (Kreator and Sodom) were due, besides their sick musical influences and personal stories, also to their socio-geographic context and the desire to deliberately extreme their insane and grand-guignolesque insights.

The early career Destruction, in contrast, are the infernal (over)killer next door. Raised in the village of Santa Claus between chocolate and strudel, they represent, for me, instinctive and inexplicable violence, similar to a "straw dog" that suddenly growls louder and more brutally than anyone else.

And so it was, dear friends, that in the beautiful snowy village were born the evil longhairs, armed with leather, studs, hairspray, and ammunition, with the intent to frighten people and counteract the prevailing havoc coming from the beach (Bay Area) across the sea.

At first, there was a "Death Sentence" that represented the (roar) of the new German Thrash movement along with the "Sign of Evil" of good ol' angel-slicer Uncle Tom and the Sodom crew.

Then came an "Eternal Devastation" to reaffirm, if anyone had doubts, that things had not changed at all: brutality, genuineness, technical approximation, but a great and ferocious Thrash attitude with a lot, a lot, a lot of sonic violence, yet spiced with that naive "melodic search" that would distinguish them... as a glimpse of humanity timidly trying to emerge.

But then came 1986, annus mirabilis (or however the hell you write it) for the entire movement, which was bound to change the rules of the game.

Thrash was no longer new and had already covertly begun a slow but inexorable evolution towards less instinctive and more "thoughtful" territories, but above all, many, many (truly many) new aggressive bands had emerged in the last two years to claim their right to slaughter. The German scene had finally revealed its face as the main and sole antagonist capable of countering American dominance.

The Destruction found themselves not only having to counter the old (and new) Yankee guard but also to confirm their leadership in the European Thrash scene, which was no longer as desolate and solitary as it had been just a couple of years before.

And so our knights of evil, excited by the challenge and the battle, took the field with the hardest and most precise weapon they had ever unleashed: "Eternal Devastation".

From the start, it's clear how the group managed, consciously or not, to place that turn that for technical reasons, more personal than anything else, they hadn't been able to materialize in their previous excellent works.

Indeed, even if Tommy Sandmann continues to be quite a flop behind the drums (especially for variety and style), it's clear how much the already good guitar and compositional qualities of master-songwriter Mike Sifringer have improved, finally spreading his vampire wings, and not only moving away from the repetitive quantitative compactness of previous works, but indeed, managing to create decently intricate structures that throughout the work keep the listener's interest high; and finally, even the "good" Marcel "Schmier" Schirmer shows he's finally gained confidence on the bass and an acceptable vocal conviction.

All this materializes in a work that has not only a new maturity but also cohesion within the lineup that demonstrates palpable unity (which will soon be lacking).

Consciously or not, our studded paladins land blows as brutal as they are precise and structured: from the dark and tense opener "Curse The Gods" one can immediately understand three things:

1: Power, impact, rawness (grater), and wickedness remain indelibly the group's distinctive traits

2: Finally, the song structures become more varied and creative, with the usual infernal breaks alternating, intertwining, and violently and whirlwindly flirting with more thought-out and (h)eavy passages; tempo and rhythm changes blend in a crescendo not finally aimed at the immediate annihilation of the listener, but rather forcing repeated and prolonged listening to grasp their beauty and balance.

3: The production, if possible, is even worse than that of previous works.

The various "Confound Games", "Life Without Sense", "Confused Mind" cannot be framed in pre-existing and identifiable structures as seen in the European Thrash scene at the time. Sick and fast passages, rotating chainsaws, square and deliberate rhythms, even arpeggios alternate describing the sonic nightmare conceived, and finally focused on, by our evil chocolate eaters.

How can we not mention the dear old "Eternal Ban" which, along with "Bestial Invasion, will become the flag of the evil empire of Emperor Sifringer, to be flaunted as a banner at every worldly occasion.

The blow dealt is so disruptive as to forgive some small similarities in solutions that, not too rarely, peek between one track and another.

Even if not managing to bring forth an absolute masterpiece, Destruction succeed in their intent to establish themselves as the top of their class and redirect the attention of thrashers to that cult hierarchy that characterized the extreme European scene in the eighties.

Personally (and you might say: "who cares") I've always considered this work as an anomaly in the thrash metal landscape of beerland: even if not excellent in its entirety and reasonably not comparable to the historical masterpieces of Metal (even European), at the time of my listening, it managed to captivate almost all the metalheads I know (myself included), earning the esteem of us poor pimple-studded fans, and still today is fondly remembered... Almost as if it were an old friend now distant or a neighbor with whom you spent your childhood... Perhaps just like that old neighbor who right now...