Worship

Japanese thrash group Grief of War have apparently spent the four years between their debut and this follow-up listening to a whole lot of Exodus, Testament, and early Megadeth, as their sound has changed somewhat since the last album. Where A Mounting Crisis...As Their Fury Got Released put a modern spin on thrash, incorporating a death-grind heaviness reminiscent of 1990s Napalm Death albums like Words from the Exit Wound and Inside the Torn Apart, Worship finds Grief of War falling into line with the less imaginative retro-thrash movement. Vocalist Manabu Hirose has a powerful, guttural delivery reminiscent of Celtic Frost's Tom G. Warrior, and guitarists Ken Sato and Hiroyuki Inoue's riffs are powerful and lightning-fast as drummer Isao Matuzaki smashes his kit like it owes him money. Sato's solos are fleet and fluid, injecting a hint of power metal bombast into the band's otherwise head-down, full-speed-ahead thrash. But their songs are so pro forma that the shorter they are, the better. The over-five-minute opening track starts to seem endless, and the six-minute, half-speed "Midnight Sun" is a slog. On the other hand, "Captured Soul Eternity" and "Revolt" fly by. Instrumental talent has to be paired with a unique songwriting perspective, though, and Grief of War don't have that. Perhaps their Japanese origins have kept them from embracing the winking meta perspective of Western bands, who sing about moshpits and thrash's superiority to all other musical forms; GOW are all about war and politics and pain, all the time. But nothing on this album is essential; it's the metal equivalent of background music or catalog music; if a TV producer needed some thrash metal, but couldn't afford to license an Exodus or Testament track, they could use this and it would sound OK. But is "OK" enough to justify a purchase by an everyday consumer? Probably not.