Shark Attack (Album)

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Shark attack
Wehrmacht studio album

Publication
(s)

June 1987

admission

November 1986

Label (s) New Renaissance Records

Format (s)

LP, MC

Genre (s)

Speed ​​Metal / Hardcore Punk

Title (number)

13

occupation
  • Electric guitar: Marco Zorich

production

Wehrmacht

Studio (s)

Falcon Studios, Portland, Oregon

chronology
- Shark attack Beer power
1989

Shark Attack is the debut album by the American metal band Wehrmacht . It was released in 1987 on New Renaissance Records. The music on the album is classified as a mixture of speed and thrash metal with influences from hardcore punk . The texts, some of which were viewed as racist , were controversial . Ian Christe counts the album as one of the pioneers of the later genre metalcore .

Emergence

After the band was able to sell more than 1000 copies of their demo Beermacht , Wehrmacht wanted to record and publish a debut album. New Renaissance Records was chosen because it was the first record label to show interest. In retrospect, the band complained about the lack of support from the label, they had to finance the studio stay and the costs for the production of around 1000 US dollars as well as the costs of the tour for the album with Cryptic Slaughter out of their own pocket. For this reason, the Wehrmacht had only two studio days available. The album was released in June 1987 on New Renaissance and a little later via Shark Records in Europe.

Music style and lyrics

The music belonged "purely musically [...] to the hardest sound of those days", comparable to groups like Cryptic Slaughter and Beyond Possession , "whereby intentions and ambitions were strikingly similar". The album is described as "perhaps one of the fastest thrash metal albums ever recorded," occasionally reminiscent of groups like SDI . The band used partly racist lyrics, such as in the song Go Home , which spoke out against the immigration of foreign workers. When confronted with appropriate criticism, the band said that they were “definitely not fascists ” and that the criticized lyrics were intended as parodies. In addition, the band announced that, despite their band name, they were not Nazis: If you read the lyrics, you would see that the band was even "anti-Nazi".

reception

While contemporary critics were largely positive about the music, opinions about the lyrics were mixed. Wolfgang Schäfer from Rock Hard described the album as the fastest that has been released so far. He particularly praised the fast guitar riffs , described the lyrics as "intelligent, sometimes funny" and drew parallels to SOD both musically and lyrically . Hucky Heppke from the music magazine Crash saw it similarly . He saw the pieces on the album as deeply rooted in hardcore punk and called the album an asset to the scene. Also idol Kühnemund , at that time still editor of Metal Hammer , praised the album, musically speaking. However, he criticized the lyrics of the album as "stupidity" ( Crazy Ways People Die ) or as "racism in its purest form" ( Go Home ). Allmusic's John Book describes the album as one of the "most energetic speed metal albums" of 1987.

Track list

  1. Shark Attack - 3:45
  2. Blow You Away - 2:44
  3. SOP - 1:31
  4. Jabberjaw - 2:07
  5. Barrage of Skankers - 2:44
  6. United Shoebrothers - 2:46
  7. Part II .... - 3:11
  8. Go Home - 2:00
  9. Anti - 2:23
  10. Napalm Shower - 2:50
  11. Crazy Ways People Die - 2:30
  12. Fretboard Gymnastics - 5:44
  13. Termination 3:02

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ Ian Christe : Sound of the Beast. The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal . HarperEntertainment, New York NY 2003, ISBN 0-380-81127-8 , pp. 181 .
  2. ^ Heavy Metal Worldwide: Wehrmacht . In: Metal Hammer . No. 9 July 1987, pp. 105 .
  3. ^ A b Frank Trojan: Spots: Wehrmacht . In: Crash . No. 9 , September 1987, pp. 52 .
  4. ↑ a b Andrea Nieradzik: Wehrmacht: Beer might be! In: Metal Hammer . No. 9 , September 1988, pp. 137 .
  5. ↑ Matthias Herr: Matthias Herr's Heavy Metal Lexicon Vol. 3 . Verlag Matthias Herr, 1991, p. 188 f .
  6. ↑ WEHRMACHT - Shark Attack , accessed June 28, 2013.
  7. ^ Metalion : Wehrmacht . In: Jon Kristiansen : Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries . Brooklyn, NY: Bazillion Points Books 2011, p. 89.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Schäfer: Wehrmacht - Shark Attack. Rock Hard No. 22, 1987, accessed June 28, 2013 .
  9. ^ Hucky Heppke: Wehrmacht - Shark Attack . In: Crash . No. 9 , September 1987, pp. 73 .
  10. ↑ Götz Kühnemund: Wehrmacht - Shark Attack . In: Metal Hammer . No. 9 , September 1987, pp. 49 .
  11. ^ John Book: Shark Attack - Wehrmacht , accessed June 28, 2013.