ONSLAUGHT
Origins of Aggression
Reigning Phoenix Music
ONSLAUGHT kills a couple of nostalgia birds with one big, brash stone in Origins of Aggression. The two-disc set allows the pioneering, yet star-crossed, U.K. thrash band to remake and retool some of its earliest work while paying homage to its influences from back in the day.
Origins features a full disc of cover songs that is steeped in vintage, and mostly British, punk and hardcore and surprisingly light on metal. But you can certainly hear how that "punkiness" rubbed off on ONSLAUGHT, especially at the get-go, on the other disc, which features re-recordings of tracks from first its three albums, which represents its first iteration as a band prior to a 1991-2004 hiatus.
ONSLAUGHT reformed in 2005 with 80 percent of its "classic" lineup and has issued four more albums since, though with only founding guitarist Nige Rockett left from the old days now. The band, however, has remained relatively stable since vocalist Dave Garnett came aboard for 2020's Generation Antichrist, arguably the best of the second iteration albums.
And the band's current lineup - with Rockett and Garnett joined by guitarist Wayne Dorman, long-serving bassist Jeff Williams and athletic drummer James Perry - does a fine job of capturing the urgency and ferocity not only of the ONSLAUGHT in its formative years, but also the spirit and spunk of the originals on the cover-version disc. This despite most, if not all, of the other members having not even been hatched when ONSLAUGHT formed in 1982.
The raw, somewhat crude and definitely hardcore-minded "Black Horse of Famine", "Thermonuclear Devastation of the Planet Earth" and "Angels of Death" from the 1985 debut LP Power From Hell are dispatched with vehemence - not to mention brevity. That album's more fleshed out title track, though, already hints of ONSLAUGHT's metallic ambitions with its stepped-up complexity and comparative girth - 4:50 vs. the 2-some minutes of the tracks noted above.
The Force from just a year later is textbook thrash - as epitomized by tracks like "Metal Forces", "Let There Be Death" and the self-explanatory "Thrash Till the Death", all of which are represented here. Super riffy, super fast, studded with chunky hooks and grooves and myriad parts, they echo EXODUS, ANTHRAX, early METALLICA, etc., and are utterly vicious. And while the re-recordings pack even more punch thanks to contemporary production and the current lineup's feisty delivery, the originals were pretty rad and rightfully raised the band's profile at the time.
Unfortunately, things pretty much went south as ONSLAUGHT's prominence grew. Major label intervention on 1989's In Search Of Sanity saw shouty frontman Sy Keeler replaced by much rangier ex-GRIM REAPER singer Steve Grimmett. And though Grimmett's howl actually paired quite well with the band's more expansive, technical Master Of Puppets-ish aspirations, the album's polished, rather toothless production made it all sound rather safe and "commercial" - which was pretty much the kiss of death back then.
A cover of AC/DC's "Let There Be Rock" probably didn't help in that regard. Not surprisingly, when the album didn't shift Master Of Puppets-like units, London Records cut the band loose. By 1991, ONSLAUGHT v1.0 was dunzo.
There is nothing toothless or safe about ONSLAUGHT v2.0's renditions of In Search Of Sanity's title track or the shout-along bruiser "Shellshock". Beefy, brash and graced by Garnett's snarlier vocals, they are everything the originals aspired to be before the big-label kneecapping. At least the band got a second chance to make things right, and it does so with gusto here. It's too bad more songs from the album aren't included here, but given they were all pretty epic, typically 7 minutes of more, these two will certainly suffice.
The punk/hardcore covers, from snot-nosed and sarcastic - DEAD KENNEDY's "Holiday in Cambodia" and SEX PISTOLS' "Holidays In The Sun" - to snub-nosed and savage - GBH's "Give Me Fire", THE EXPLOITED's "U.K. 82" and a trio of DISCHARGE numbers - all kick ass and sound like they mean it. The band does nothing here to gussy them up, it just tears through right them. Same goes for the wicked take on MOTORHEAD's "Iron Fist", not necessarily an obvious choice, but an inspired one nonetheless.
JUDAS PRIEST's "Freewheel Burning", again not an obvious choice, offers Garnett a chance to show a bit more range and he gives it a pretty fair go at approximating Rob Halford's wail. And while BLACK SABBATH's "War Pigs" is a bit clunky with his punkier take on Ozzy Osbourne's vocals, KILLING JOKE's "Wardance" is a gruff, turbulent triumph that nicely captures the original's flair for the avant garde.
3.5 Out Of 5.0
