Exodus
Shovel Headed Kill Machine

THE REVIEW

Every metalhead usually likes all genres of metal, but everyone has a particular genre they favor, which differentiates their personality and their metalhead attitude. For example, Brutallari like (as the great reviewer Tepes has pointed out to us many times) vomiting, popping pimples, squirting pus everywhere, etc. etc. Blacksters enjoy inverting crosses, carving satan stars on their chests, attaching goat heads to their windows, etc. etc. For Thrashers like me, what could be better than breaking everything, thrashing your head around 360 degrees until your neck snaps and getting an orgasm from every superultrastramega fast solo? In fact, I spend entire afternoons intensely Thrashing.

I recently got a hold of this Shovel Headed Kill Machine by the legendary Exodus, released a year ago. I immediately listened to it in my room and found it simply devastating! But let's proceed in order: The first track is titled Raze, starting with a simple yet effective guitar riff. Then the singer comes in with a harsh and violent voice. Only after two choruses does one of those solos start that sends me into an epileptic fit with foam at the mouth and eyes rolling back. Luckily, the second solo is a bit slower, or I would have bitten off my tongue. On drums, we find that monster Paul Bostaph who beats incredibly fast rhythms. However, by the end of the first track, I realize my room isn't in the right condition for Thrashing, so I head to the garden, dig with a shovel, and bring 4 or 5 wheelbarrows of dirt into my room. Then, I attach the hose to the bathroom faucet and water the ground until it turns to mud. Sliding on the muddy parquet is super cool.

Then I play the record again. The second track is called Deathamphetamine and starts with a bass line while the guitars begin to scratch. After that, a slow and heavy riff starts, making me spin around the room like a drunk gorilla. Then the song becomes incredibly fast, and I start thrashing my head at 360 degrees. Paul is even more in shape than before. Then comes one of the fastest superstramega solos I've ever heard. At this point, I throw myself from one side to the other, completely smashing the walls, then the song slows down, speeds up again with another solo, and I start jumping on the bed, muddying it completely, and for a good 8:31, I make an enormous mess. Luckily, the third track, Karma's Messenger, is slower but very technical, so I take my black Ibanez out of the (smashed) closet and strike a pose like a rock god, even though I've just started playing and still suck. The fourth track, Shudder To Think, is a mix of interrupted riffs with the singer having an even raspier voice than usual. The fifth track, I Am Abomination, follows the same line as the other, and I start the classic headbanging of the type "Shake your head up and down". I continue doing this with Altered Boy, a track over seven minutes long that never gets tiresome. The intertwined guitars at the end are beautiful. The seventh track, Going Going Gone, is the most "classic" of the album, and it reminds you of the good old '80s. The eighth track even features a second voice even shriller than the singer's. During the last two tracks, 44 Magnum Opus and Shovel Headed Kill Machine, I'm exhausted but continue to create chaos nonetheless.

But fatigue plays a bad trick on me, and jumping off the bed, I sprain my ankle, letting out the entire scream of Angel Of Death plus some curses. Only at the end, lying there in pain, do I realize I have been Thrashing all day and still have homework to do.