As much as metal’s longevity depends on a regular influx of new ideas and evolutionary leaps, it is equally true that sticking to your guns and letting rip the old-school way is integral to our world’s spiritual wellbeing.
Thanatos are celebrating three decades of tireless dedication to the deathly thrash cause by releasing an album that sticks proudly to the same ferocious template that they first embraced on their early demos, albeit with a clearer and more potent production than anything that was feasible back in ’84.
Global Purification makes no nods towards modernity, but it does reaffirm how unerring the efficacy of the band’s sound has remained, as grimly feral energy, brazenly malevolent riffing and regular bursts of frenzied, Kreator-like speed conspire to carve your scalp off and wear it as an attractive, if bloody, brooch.
At their best on the tempo-switching clangour of gruffly epic tirades like The Demonized Minority, Thanatos may not be bringing anything new to the metal underground, but their mastery of the form is hard to deny./o:p
