Onslaught

Only two years after the release of the live dvd Live Polish Assault 2007, Onslaught releases a brand new live album. It might seem like a bit of overkill, but Live Damnation has a value over the dvd. First of all, there’s more songs of their fabulous comeback album Killing Peace – which wasn’t released yet at the time Polish Assault was recorded – and secondly, especially the drum sound is a lot better than on the dvd.

In addition, Live Damnation is the first album on which we can hear new lead guitarist Andy Rosser-Davies. Rosser-Davies has a style which is a bit more aggressive than that of his predecessor Alan Jordan and even though I liked his playing a lot as well, Rosser-Davies fits the sound of the British thrash quintet slightly better. His rhythm playing fits Nige Rockett’s like a glove and that gets us an impressive wall of guitar sound.

The songs on Live Damnation almost all hail from the underground classic The Force (like a nicely grooving version of Metal Forces) and the most recent Killing Peace album (like the amazing Destroyer Of Worlds). Only closing track Power From Hell is from a different album (with the same name actually). Sy Keeler’s vocals sound great and for a thrash fan, this is nothing less than a killer live album.

My only minor point of criticism would be that with 42 minutes, it’s a bit short, but on the other hand, Onslaught uses those minutes to the maximum. No unnecessarily long intro’s (Let There Be Death, for instance, starts with the fast part right away) and Keeler keeps his in between songs talk short and powerful. Of course, an additional half hour of thrash would have been great, but considering quality above quantity, this isn’t really a problem.

Onslaught is on a roll. In August, you can actually see them live on the Alcatraz Metal Festival in Belgium and Live Damnation is probably a good preview of what you’re going to get there. Hopefully the next release of the Brits will be an awesome new studio album, but until then, fans of good thrash can get their fill with this record.

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