Destruction
Under Attack

Last week I probably had the worst pizza of my life. Even though I naively let myself be convinced by the sign outside “FOR TWENTY YEARS ALWAYS THE SAME, BUT THE TASTE REMAINS SUPER.” Three bites, a beer, I paid the €13.00 I have ever spent, and I went home with that dough and those mushrooms in my stomach that felt like children's clay. Meanwhile, I was thinking, was there a record that I listened to a while ago that fully mirrored this (dreadful) experience, or rather that misleading sign?

And the answer came almost immediately. “Under Attack” by Destruction. If there's a band that has never changed its sound by a fraction over the years, it’s Destruction. But the quality of the albums was inversely proportional to the quantity. Active for almost 30 years (I'll avoid talking about the '90s), and founded by Marcel Schmier and Mike Sifringer, Destruction represents the epitome of musical stagnation in the Thrash field. And rightly so, you might say, they play Thrash, what should they play, Progressive? Not at all. But personally, when I listen to a band, of any genre, I almost always approve the courage to change something in their sound. Some different arrangement, songs structured differently from others, different vocal lines, something. Just think of the Sodom of the early '90s (“Agent Orange”, the more melodic “Better Off Dead”, or “Tapping The Vein” which leaned towards Death influences), or the Kreator of the same period. Schmier, on the other hand, has always answered with a categorical “NO”, to say nothing more, to any kind of innovation that could tamper with the Destruction brand.

After a more-than-forgettable period in the '90s, from 2001 until today, Schmier and company have released 8 albums that, it pains me to say, are all tremendously similar. I don't say this to mock a band out of simple pleasure that I have tried for years to like, and whose relentless consistency I appreciate, but in the long run, for me, it proves to be a rather foolish and deficient move, suitable for those who are satisfied with the same reheated soup, over and over. Without seasoning. I'm the first to judge the first three works of Destruction as pillars of German Thrash, but as time progresses, playing the usual four riffs doesn't seem to be a winning maneuver.

In fact, if at least up to “Metal Discharge” of 2003, Destruction had produced more than appreciable albums, from “Inventor Of Evil” onwards, nothing. I could pick any song from a random album from 2005 to today and not recognize the album in which it is contained. And unfortunately, the story with “Under Attack” of 2016 doesn’t change.

Released after a good four years from the previous “Spiritual Genocide”, “Under Attack” continues undeterred to fill more than 50 minutes of music with monotone riffs, completely flat vocal performances by Schmier, and lyrics that can't be more recycled. Not everything is to be thrown away, however, because the title track, within its limits, manages not to bore, the same goes for “Getting Used To The Evil”, more paced in rhythm, and with a drum performance by Vaaver that is worth highlighting, and not even the groove of “Generation Nevermore” is to be discarded. All accompanied by excellent production that highlights all the components, although slightly plasticky, but this seems to have become a prerogative of anyone who signs under Nuclear Blast. All that described before collapses under the banality of pieces like “Pathogenic”, the atrocious and inconclusive “Elegant Pigs”, “Stand Up For What You Deliver”, or the direct “Stigmatized”, a good piece but lost in a medley of overly familiar riffs. Instead, a pitiful veil should be drawn over the two bonus tracks, respectively a cover of Venom's (Black Metal) and a rearranged version of “Thrash Attack”, a song that loses much of its impact with modern sounds.

An album I was waiting for in 2016? Yes and no, I knew what to expect, but that was precisely what scared me. Schmier's stubbornness in continuing to propose his uncompromising idea of Thrash Metal seems to have no end, and perhaps he will never realize the spiral of banality he has entered over the last fifteen years. In August, the new, so to speak, “Born To Perish” will be released. I would like to say I have expectations, but when faced with a band so stubborn in proposing its music, it’s hard to have any. I wouldn’t want to have another lousy mushroom pizza...