Angelus Apatrida – Clockwork

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Young Spanish outfit Angelus Apatrida earned their label debut with two well-received sell-financed releases in 2006 and 2007 before signing to Century Media, which will see their music released outside of Spain for the first time. Intelligent, technical thrash, Clockwork mixes healthy amounts of prime Slayer, Anthrax and Destruction with a little Overkill groove into a sound that bridges the European/American thrash styles. Every track here is as fast, aggressive and sharp as anyone could want from a thrash album, while being far from one-dimensional. All of the playing is first class, packed with wailing solos, and Guilermo Izquierdo’s vocals are a mix of Steve Souza and Matt Drake, meaning they’re angry, nasty, but perfectly understandable and not at all the blatant Paul Baloff copycat attempt a lot of new thrash bands aim for. Each track goes through as many different riffs as the more single-minded thrash bands do in a whole album, and the band have the same vocal hook sensibilities as Overkill and Annihilator, meaning there’s something to sing along to as well. The special edition version of the album adds a suitable thrashy cover of Iron Maiden‘s Be Quick Or Be Dead which rounds out an album that, against incredibly stiff competition in a year that has seen a lot of excellent thrash releases, could very well turn out to be the best come Christmas.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2010, Albums, Quick.Play Reviews, Thrash Metal, Angelus Apatrida