Bonded By Blood – Exiled To Earth

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After gaining a lot of recognition amongst the recent crop of new thrash bands with their debut album Feed The Beast, this anticipated follow-up is another solid, if slightly under-produced thrash work-out straddling the line between throw-away and worthwhile. Around half of the tracks are by-the-numbers “party thrash” that are characteristic of most young thrash bands (the title track, Cross-Insemination, and unsurprisingly the 53 seconds of Parasitic Infection are exceptionally guilty of this) and the subject matter is rather juvenile (more Municipal Waste than Annihilator), but at least they’re not thrash songs about thrash, which is generally as basic and lacklustre as thrash can be. Sometimes the vocals feel a little disjointed from the music (Blood Spilled Offerings), but tracks like Desolate Future, Prototype: Death Machine and Episodes of Aggression stand up as good tracks with plenty of varied riffing and soloing. But as with many of their contemporaries they really need to start writing songs that are actually about something rather than yet another batch of science fiction/horror b-movie plots if they want to be taken seriously on their third outting.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2010, Albums, Quick.Play Reviews, Thrash Metal, Bonded By Blood