Sentence of Death

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Sentence of Death
Extended Play by Destruction

Publication
(s)

1984

admission

September 1984

Label (s) Steamhammer

Format (s)

LP, MC

Genre (s)

Thrash metal

Title (number)

6th

running time

19:33

occupation
  • Mike: guitar
  • Tommy: drums

production

Wolfgang Eichholz

Studio (s)

Caet Studios, Berlin

chronology
- Sentence of Death Infernal Overkill (1985)

Sentence of Death is the first EP by the German thrash metal band Destruction .

Emergence

After the band had found a functioning unit with the last entry, Marcel “Lubricant” Schirmer , who compensated for two personnel departures (singer, bassist), the band name was renamed Destruction. In June 1984 the demo Bestial Invasion of Hell was recorded after a record company was found with Steamhammer .

Influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal , especially Jaguar , Raven , Venom , Angel Witch and Tygers of Pan Tang , as well as under the influence of the latest developments from Exciter , Metallica and Slayer , the musicians set out in September 1984 to the Berlin Caet Studios. In terms of production, the SADO bassist Wolfgang Eichholz recorded Sentence of Death , which contains three pieces from the demo and two new songs. The album was recorded and mixed within four days. Black Mass and Devil's Soldiers were written between the first demo and the EP. Since the band had to hurry to compose these songs, as SPV wanted to start recording as soon as possible, these two songs are described by Schmier as the worst on the EP. The young musicians enjoyed the feeling of professionalism as much as the big city nightlife. In doing so, they left their producers out of sight and only found out later that they only partially liked the excessive effects.

In terms of material selection, the release of Slayer's show No Mercy came before them; Destruction had two songs with the same title in their repertoire , which - because they did not want to deviate from the naming that had been fixed - were canceled. The mini-LP was released in the US on Metal Blade Records , where Show No Mercy was also released.

Track list

  1. Intro - 1:14
  2. Total disaster - 4:06
  3. Black Mass - 4:00
  4. Mad Butcher - 3:31
  5. Satan's Vengeance - 3:16
  6. Devil's Soldiers - 3:26

layout

For the release in the US , Metal Blade Records decided to use a different cover than the one originally designed; one wished for more skulls on the cover. Martin Popoff wrote in his book The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal Volume 2: The Eighties that the album cover was one of the most exaggerated in metal history.

Music style and lyrics

At the time of publication, the band called their music " Black Speed ​​Metal " and thanked "all Black Speed ​​Metal obsessed".

Jan Jaedike from Rock Hard describes the style as "quite original, only 'Devil's Soldiers' sounded very much like Venom instrumentally". In the Rock Hard Encyclopedia there is talk of influences from Possessed , Venom and Slayer, from which a specific "riot style" results. Matthias Herr (in Volume 1 of his Lexicon series) can find out about the assignment of Speed ​​Metal. Martin Popoff noted that the EP's aggressive drumming stood out. The sound carrier is one of the first of German Thrash Metal.

The Metal Hammer missed the independence of "uncompromising, rock-hard Speed ​​Metal", because the orientation towards Slayer could not be ignored. The EP is old school Thrash Metal, says ultimate-guitar.com . The guitar force did not suffer from the production and the "wacky" sound of the drums was preserved. With Mad Butcher , Destruction delivered a classic on the first release. It is a humorous song, which does not apply to all pieces, which are more about ominous and its personifications. This is in line with the trend at the time, neither outstandingly good nor bad. This is presented quite differently in the recent Metal-Hammer review: You notice that the guitars have been overplayed several times and that there is “a lot of echo on the vocals and the drums”. The sound image is "a bit faded". The band only cares about speed, which amounts to chaos. Destruction doesn't come close to Slayer and Metallica. And Daniel Bukszan also stated in the book The Encyclöpedia öf Heavy Metal that the EP has a poor sound quality, but you can clearly hear the aggression and enthusiasm of the band. According to Classic Thrash , the EP stood out for "the great amount of unrestrained energy that all of these pieces demonstrate".

Because of their occult themes, the "dark lyrics" have been attacked, says the band Heavy Metal Made in Germany . Then it is sent afterwards that Destruction only played with themes that match their image . Jaedike wrote that the lyrics had "initially [...] a Venom list". According to the self-statement of the band, there are actually texts of a “satanic” character on the sound carrier, musically, however, one does not pursue this direction, but rather play “hardcore high-speed metal”. In an interview with the German fanzine Voices from the Darkside , which Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen re-released in his Fanzine Slayer , Lubricant stated that the band was influenced by Venom, among others. The lyrics speak out against the church because the band abhor it, but they have nothing to do with Satanism .

reception

The Internet platform Allmusic awarded four out of five possible stars. At that time, no points were awarded in the Metal Hammer . Despite critical comments on the production and the speed metal emulation, the songs are all worth listening to, Mad Butcher and Total Desaster being the best. The book Rock Hard Encyclopedia also has no evaluation points, but also weighs positive and negative against each other, namely the "carefree" and the "flowing guitar runs" against "rhythmic weaknesses". On ultimate-guitar.com , the EP achieved a maximum rating of “10” in the separately rated musical area, in addition to a less significant rating for the texts of seven points, a “9”.

For Heavy Metal Made in Germany , Destruction broke “absolutely new territory” and therefore belonged to the “spearhead” of the Thrash era. Matthias Herr also emphasizes the band's “pioneering role”.

Harry Wilkens (who hadn’t played anything himself yet) commented on the album’s soon-to-be cult status in a deadline interview in 1990 : “It used to be a lot easier, as we all know. DESTRUCTION were the first speed metal band in Germany when the first mini-LP came out [sic!]. There was [sic!] A gap in the market that we could grasp [means: occupy]. If we were to release a debut like Sentence of Death today , this record would just fizzle out. Back then you needed a couple of really good songs, an image and a record, and you could achieve a lot. People reacted to that. Today the market is totally overcrowded. "

About 14,000 units separated from the EP.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Peter Schwartz: Destruction . The End is Now! […] In: Metal Hammer . March 1985, p. 25 .
  2. ↑ a b c Destruction . In: Metal Hammer . January 1985, p. 16 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Arno Hofmann et al .: Heavy Metal Made in Germany (=  Iron Pages ). 1st edition. IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-931624-08-0 , Destruction, p. 84 ff .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Detlef Dengler: 20 years of destruction . Two decades of destruction. In: Metal Hammer . June 2004, p. 50 f .
  5. ^ A b c d Jon Kristiansen : Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries . Bazillion Points Books, Brooklyn, NY 2011, pp. 412 f .
  6. ↑ a b Mike [Trengert]: Destruction. Interview . In: Speed ​​Attack . German metal fanzine. No. 2 [early 1985], p. 10 f . ( sendbackmystamps.files.wordpress.com [PDF; 42.8 MB ]).
  7. ^ A b Martin Popoff : The Collector's Guide of Heavy Metal . tape 2 : The Eighties. . Collectors Guide Ltd, Burlington, Ontario, Canada 2005, ISBN 1-894959-31-0 , p. 95 .
  8. ↑ Marc Halupczok : Between death and rebirth . In: Metal Hammer . Special issue No. 1/2012: History of Metal . S. 24 .
  9. ^ Destruction: Sentence of Death . Banzai Records , 1984.
  10. ^ A b Jan Jaedike: Everything except high German . The beginnings of Destruction. In: Rock Hard . No. 329 , October 2014, p. 30 .
  11. ↑ a b Holger Stratmann (Ed.): Rock Hard Enzyklopädie . 700 of the most interesting rock bands from the last 30 years. Rock Hard GmbH, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , Destruction, p. 89 f .
  12. ↑ a b Matthias Herr: Matthias Herr's Heavy Metal Lexicon . Vol. 1. Verlag Matthias Herr, Berlin March 1993, Destruction, p. 46 f . (New edition).
  13. ↑ Destruction . In: Metal Hammer . (July / August), 1985, pp. 27 .
  14. ↑ a b Iommi600: Sentence Of Death [EP] Review. In: ultimate-guitar.com. February 24, 2012, accessed March 13, 2015 .
  15. ↑ a b Petra Becker: Destruction . "Sentence of Death". In: Metal Hammer . December 1984, p. 66 .
  16. ↑ Daniel Bukszan: The Encyclöpedia öf Heavy Metal . Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2012, ISBN 978-1-4027-9230-4 , pp. 77 .
  17. ↑ Reviews - D. Classic Thrash, accessed on March 16, 2015 .
  18. ↑ Sean Westergaard: Destruction. Infernal Overkill / Sentence of Death. In: allmusic.com. Retrieved March 13, 2015 .
  19. ^ Markus Müller: Destruction . In: Deadline . No. 4 (beginning), 1990, p. 16 .