Year: 2021
Total Time: 69:14
Label: Nuclear Blast

When someone hears the terms “Big 4” or “Big 6 of US thrash Metal” and stuff like that, bands like DEATH ANGEL are never part of them. The truth is that they are one of the most underrated bands of their time since their story started pretty promising but ended by going up in some, at least the first part of it. While they have released two very good first albums, “The Ultra-Violence” in 1987 and “Frolic Through The Park” in 1988, the signed to a big label like Geffen and released “Act III” in 1990, but in the following tour, their drummer Angy Galeon had an accident resulting in staying out for over a year, a fact that led to their demise. In 2001 they reunited in order to take part in the “Thrash of the Titans benefit concert” to support Chuck Billy and they are staying more than active after that with numerous interesting releases, touring etc.

After the forced lockdown and suspension of all events the last couple of years, the bands had to find different ways to show signs of life. One of them was the performance of concerts in venues, but without audience, something like a “dress rehearsal” I could say. But DEATH ANGEL took it a step further once again.

So, last May, down at their home town in San Francisco, they played a 70 minute long set that was out of a bands comfort zone because they include a tracklist that is more known as “deep cuts”. This term is about songs that are not “hits” they are played rarely often, or not at all o they are pretty rare to hear. Another characteristic here is that they included only 3 songs from their early days, “Why You Do This”, “Guilty Of Innocence” and “The Organization” while just before the end they throw in a very nice cover version of “Falling Off The Edge Of The World” from the classic BLACK SABBATH album “Mob Rules” with Mark Osegueda on vocals, one of the two remaining old members, doing a really amazing job. The other “ancient one” is the guitarist Rob Cavestany, who back in the 90’s have created THE ORGANIZATION together with other DEATH ANGL ex-members.

The rest 11 songs date from the album “Killing Season” of 2008 and up to “Hummanicide” from three years ago and to me, the top ones are “Lord Of Hate” that opens the show, “Where They Lay”, “Fallen”, “Alive And Screaming” while in around the middle of the set we get the almost ballads “Faded Remains” and “Volcanic” that sound like a mood killer and I assume they won’t be played live again, at least not with fans, I really don’t see a reason for that to happen. But they are performed greatly, like everything else, and since this is the general concept and the idea of the album, we take them as they are.

There are not many more things we can say for such a release. DEATH ANGEL have released in the past other good live recordings, obviously under normal circumstances and compilations s well, that someone can refer too if they want something more representative of them. Ere, we have a release that is addressed to the die-hard fans, to those who like experimentations and to those who like to watch and then nag because the band isn’t playing this and that more often and so on. It is also recommended to those who like to dig in the scene a little deeper, DEATH ANGEL may have put themselves down in the past and now is a good chance to see and agree why they deserve to be higher in the ranking in the Thrash Metal Hall Of Fame.

Rating: N/A
Editor: Antonis Livanios
Related Link: DEATH ANGEL – Official Page