Powermad
Absolute Power

A door that creaks open. Slow, proud, almost rhythmic footsteps. A gloomy, distressing atmosphere. In the background, you can hear a voice that seems uneasy, as it weakly recites its last prayers. Then something slams shut, one after the other, its shutters. The music makes its greedy and lethargic appearance when piercing screams, as if aware of their fate, tear through the atmosphere: the games begin. The guitars seem like cold, rough steel insolently piercing the fleshy limbs, bass and drums perfectly set up a mad and pounding backdrop, the throat creates agony until the chorus, where the melody merges with despair and dismay...and so be it Macello.

No, stop... I'm not trying to disgust you with some putrid conception of work; the scenario described is nothing more than a personal fresco of ''Slaughterhouse'' (cinematically resumed the following year by master David Lynch in the film Wild at Heart), the devastating opener of the first (and unfortunately only) album ''Absolute Power'' of the American band Powermad, who over time became a true cult band for all those who chew refined and wild Thrash metal at the same time. Imagine John Petrucci and Michael Romeo jamming together in a Speed/Thrash project full of classical influences like Judas Priest and you will get a fairly close definition to what these fun-loving guys from Minneapolis proposed, arriving at the release of such a debut in 1989, thanks to the trust of the major Combat, after a couple of EPs (Powermad and The Madness Begins...) and yet without having a real experience behind them. This was precisely the reason for their premature disappearance: the trend was ending and, having not created an adequate following of fans over the years around concerts (as Exodus or Kreator and a few others did), when the label dropped them, they unfortunately found themselves alone and down and out.

''Absolute Power'' represents one of the most astute testimonials of how class and virtuosity could be fused with raw, unadorned execution speed alternating moments of absolute merriment (the ironclad ''Test The Steel'' or the stop & go of the captivating title track) with more thought-out and strictly melodic episodes (the catchy ''Nice Dreams'' with its still fresh harmonic lines more than twenty years later, or the initial arpeggio of ''Plastic Town''). The impression is, however, that all the tracks brilliantly play their part in the final tally (the only exception for me remains the gloomy ''Brainstorms'', though pleasant to listen to), fully enhanced by the congenial production, reaching peaks of absolute beauty: this is the case with ''B.N.R.'' which is introduced by an exquisite solo part that develops into an exceptional slice where the best vocal performance of the platter finds space (Juel DuBay may not be a lightning bolt of war but his timbre is certainly recognizable); or ''Final Frontier'', placed not by chance at the end, which overwhelms us with an imposing initial guitar sound painting dizzying tight passages then exploding into the orgasmic refrain; finally the bone-crushing ''Return From Fear'' with its excessive use of palm-muted riffs for moshing that would foreshadow some tricks upon which bands like Pantera (and not only them) would build entire careers.

If, hypothetically, I were asked to recommend 10 ''second-tier'' American Thrash Metal albums to newcomers eager to destroy their ears for the first time, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to include this now dusty ''Absolute Power'' in the blacklist, packed with memorable tracks (plus one to pass down to posterity), but above all with an almost unique sense of stylistic authority that will leave its adrenaline imprint on you at least until the first signs of Alzheimer's.