Delirium Tremens
Thrashing Warthogs
6.7
So we’ve got a band whose name is an (albeit indirect) alcohol reference, whose album title includes the word ‘thrash,’ and who write songs with names like “Worship Satan,” “Army of Death,” and “Balls of Fire.” I’ll take ‘throwback thrash metal’ for 500, please. Delirium Tremens more or less entirely tip their stylistic hand before they can play a single note; Thrashing Warthogs counts virtually every single thrash genre convention amongst its limited musical vocabulary. Take the likes of Destruction, Kreator, Dark Angel, and (of course) Slayer, sprinkle on a wee smidgen of black metal seasoning, and you’ve got the basic recipe for a Delirium Tremens song. Like most thrash albums nowadays, it’s a retread. It’s also virtually static from start to finish, but does that keep it from being a fairly entertaining listen? If you’re a thrash fan then the answer is almost certainly no, though Thrashing Warthogs isn’t about to overtake any stalwarts from your collection.
This album is about as no-frills as metal albums get; between the obligatory dumb intro and a rather ill-advised cover of “Paradise City,” Thrashing Warthogs is nonstop pedal-to-the-metal thrash. The tempos tend towards the frenetic and the riffs carry a definite flutter-picked Darkthrone-esque bite, so fans of the more primal and aggressive bands from thrash’s heyday (Dark Angel springs most immediately to mind for me) will dig this almost instantly. There’s not a lot in the way of dynamics to be had here, and the catchy chromatic riffs tend to come and go without preamble or buildup. The vox are delivered in an appropriately treble-heavy holler, while the solos are pure Hanneman/King worship that employ the usual arsenal of whammy dives and noisy fretting. Highlighting specific riffs or structures seems kind of beside the point on an album like this. All it really comes down to is a bunch of four or five minute songs played with little regard for anything besides chaotic speed and traditionalist hero-worship.
This may come across as a genre review, but that’s hard to avoid when the album in question employs every foible associated with its musical niche. Thrashing Warthogs was written by thrash metal fanatics for the listening pleasure of other thrash metal fanatics, and evaluating it outside of that context means approaching Delirium Tremens on ground they never intended to occupy. This shit is both well-played and performed without a whit of concern for creativity, so whether you enjoy it or not depends on whether or not you’re looking for another throwback thrash album to add to your war chest.
