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F.K.Ü.: 4: Rise of the mosh mongers

28/06/13 || Ironpants

One album to rule them all.

As you have seen with my reviews over time, they tend to grow in length when the album in question manage to conjure some kind of memory, or state of mind remembered from my 100+ years of breathing and dwelling on this earth. And I guess that is a sign that you are getting too fucking old, sitting around mumbling shit about “the good ‘ol days”.

You all have those kind of people amongst your next of kin, you know, some old uncle or grandparent, sitting at family dinners going “I remember when I was a kid, we didn’t have Playstations and shit, we took turns throwing darts at the bulls ball sack, and one of us was blindfolded in the field and the guy who stayed the longest without a concussion was the winner” or “I started working when I was 4 years old, I followed my dad down in the coal-mine and I pulled trolleys with 13 tons of rubble 6 days a week, on Sundays I was allowed to play for 1 hour, then I helped my uncle in the woods, chopping timber with my teeth. If I was lucky, he gave me a punch in the stomach for being helpful, if I were unlucky, he kicked me in the balls with his steel toe-boots”.

I am going to be just that old cranky dude very soon, and I am doing my best practicing before getting there. Cause this album awakes memories inside my decomposed cranium, I listened to it the first times “as I usually do” in the car or in headphones at work. If an album meets the criteria it is transferred into my regular playlist, and in this case I listened to it on a sunny evening while doing some BBQ-ing. And it clicked…

Suddenly I was sent back in time to my younger days around 14-17 years of age, when thrash was the tits. You know (?), when you gathered in small packs every weekend just listening to metal and drinking a lot of brewskis, or if you had the misfortune of not having a job, it was every day of the week. You rocked out to the latest albums by Exodus, Overkill, Nuclear Assault and all the other bands that ruled that time, and everything was just perfect. Actually, I’ll tell you what I did this time around when I devoured this album, I went to the liquor store and bought that same shitty beer we always drank cases of in the summer. I then sat my fat ass down on my patio in the sun, cranked up the volume, and once again I was overwhelmed with memories of the good ‘ ol days. That is fucken pathetic right??

This band has been around for a while, and in my opinion they are severely underrated. They have released 4 albums over 14 years or so, and they are seldom mentioned in the discussions of thrash metal. But I’m gonna change that for you, just because I’m cool like that. I don’t really know how serious they are with the band, because some of the members are also in other bands, but I would at least say semi-serious, cause even if they have tons of tongue-in-cheek regarding the image of the band and lyrical content, there is nothing halfway done here.

From my point of view, the production is perfect, they have managed to pinpoint that dry, chunky thrash metal production that evolved after the first initial wave of thrash, I’m thinking Exodus/Anthrax second, third album era. And they insert some small intros and samples between the songs that enhance the overall experience and make it more fun to listen to. I’ve seen some people complaining about the “Überslasher” tunes that are small interludes or “in-between” songs that appear in some places around the album, but I beg to differ. I think they are quite funny and I immediately think of S.O.D. when I hear them. Man, I loved S.O.D., and I guess F.K.Ü. did to?

When talking about the “real” songs on the album, there’s plenty of them to highlight. Right from the first track, you are thrown into the world of F.K.Ü., which means choruses with catchy hooks, excellent riffing, pulsating bass play and übertight drumming. And…the vocals. This time around Larry Lethal has outdone himself, and his vocal range is pretty wide. From high pitched screams to low growls, and he fucking rules the album. Song after song he delivers varied and interesting vocals with fun lyrics. By the way he is also a stellar front man during live performances and has that ability to serve you a proper live experience, and that actually shines through on the recordings. If you ever get the chance, go see them live. Excellent stuff!

There are plenty of songs on this album, and if you don’t count those four small mini songs and the intro, it adds up to 12 of them, and I was afraid that it would get boring, but there’s no chance of that. All of the tunes clock in around the 3 minute mark and all with a thrashing tempo, so there’s no time to think about random stuff, besides banging your head and play air-guitar. Songs worth mentioning as highlights would be “Black hole hell” (that fucking song has been nailed in my cranium for weeks now, that verse and chorus…), “112 Ocean Avenue” (a perfect example of the bands cravings for horror, with lyrics telling the story of the “Amityville incident”), “At the mountains of madness” (a slower song with a mid-tempo crunch, and a verse stolen from an older tune, by who? Tell me in a comment in the forums, I hear it, do you?). Well I can go on forever. Almost all the songs are keepers, and it was a very long time ago I got an album this worthy of fine tunes all the way through.

You see what they do to me? I’m caught in a rant, and could talk forever about this album, but in the end of the day, you must decide for yourselves, and if you consider yourself a real thrasher, this is the album of the year. I don’t consider myself a thrasher nowadays, but when hearing this, I don’t mind being one for the moment. I’ve listened to it multiple times during the last weeks, and I go back to it all the time, and I get fucken happy when listening to it. This was much needed after a long cold winter and listening to a never ending stream of depressive post metal/post hardcore crap, yeah I said crap, I’m starting to hate that shit more than metalcore damn it. I need to recharge with positive energy and F.K.Ü. are the perfect messenger to do that. Thrash or die!

Information
Released: 2013
Label: Napalm Records
Website: www.moshoholics.com
Band
Larry Lethal: vocals
Pete Stooaahl: guitars
Pat Splat: bass
Dr. Ted Killer Miller: drums

Tracklist
01. Moshocalypse now
02. Rise of the mosh mongers
03. Black hole hell
04. Cannibal detox
05. The überslasher pt.1
06. Scream bloody mosher
07. Esox lucius
08. The überslasher pt.2
09. At the mountains of madness
10. A nightmare made thrash
11. 112 Ocean Avenue
12. The überslasher pt.3
13. Marz attacks
14. Terro train
15. The überslasher pt.4
16. They feed in the dark
17. Anthem of the moshoholics

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