Destruction’s Born To Thrash: German titans live and feral

Euro thrash warhorses Destruction show no sign of slowing on new live album Born To Thrash

(Image: © Nuclear Blast)

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Captured the day after the release of their 15th album at Party.San Open Air in August 2019, this short but savage set from the thrash royalty underlines what a revered force Destruction continue to be. Two songs from new record Born To Perish sound as vital as the likes of 35-year old staple Mad Butcher, with new sticksman Randy Black and guitarist Damir Eskić slotting in seamlessly with veterans Mike and Schmier. The latter’s idiosyncratic thrash wail gives the likes of Curse The Gods and Nailed To The Cross a fiendish bite, and Bestial Invasion still spits with the same rebellious venom with which it was conceived. At just 10 songs long it’s hardly the most emphatic live album in thrash’s arsenal, but instead a succinct festival set of consistent gems from one of the genre’s great survivors.


Adam Brennan

Rugby, Sean Bean and power ballad superfan Adam has been writing for Hammer since 2007, and has a bad habit of constructing sentences longer than most Dream Theater songs. Can usually be found cowering at the back of gigs in Bristol and Cardiff. Bruce Dickinson once called him a 'sad bastard'.