review by: Roberto Martinelli

I think the same aliens that have possessed the bodies of Metallica since 1990 - making them merely look like Metallica - have gotten a hold of Destruction. What the hell happened? Everything that made the band appealing and unique is gone. In its place is a totally generic and boring band that sounds like a clone of bands that originally ripped off Destruction in the first place.

Ok, technically, Destruction has come a long way since some of the objectively pathetic (but oh, so loveable) records of the 80s. Records like Sentence of Death and Infernal Overkill, where the drummer was terrible and the drum sound was one of the most laughable ever; with fuck ups that were left in the final product, making you think that either the band didn't give a shit or that the final product was the absolute best take out of all the takes that had to be done in the studio. And of course there were the totally ridiculous but completely awesome vocals.

A Destruction record now has great production and a drummer that can play. But, what happened to the killer riffs and solos? Destruction's guitarist, Mike, would come up with great stuff. Listen to Eternal Devastation and the aforementioned Infernal Overkill for proof. Now there are just wholly useless songs that go even further by being also entirely asinine with stupid rehashed lyrics and choruses.

But the biggest stake to the heart of Destruction fans is what has happened to the vocals. Originally fans were angry when Schmier, the singer/bassist, was kicked out ten years ago. How could you have Destruction without Schmier, possibly the worst singer on the planet, but who would do these priceless falsetto accents within his hilarious gruff style in which he would totally butcher the pronunciation of the English language? You couldn't, that's what. And so it was a big deal when Schmier came back a few years ago and Destruction supposedly got back on track after releasing albums that no one cared about or even knew about such as The Least Successful Human Cannonball.

Well, that priceless and unique vocal style is nowhere to be found. So what if Schmier is the frontman again? That could be anybody on the record. The trademark Destruction vocals have been replaced by totally generic trash. Oh, and you can also avoid the band's "comeback" album of two years ago. It's a sad day.