DJ James
A coma stole my name.
Eh, Destruction had a strong comeback with All Hell Breaks Loose and the thrash masterpiece The Antichrist. After that though they've been putting out the same brand of thrash metal just with a different name. I did like 2007's Thrash Anthems though. Tankard comes off as a band that is not supposed to be taken seriously, at all. Ever. Which makes it kind of hard to criticize them. I think some of their lyrics are hilarious and a lot of the guitar work on their first few alums I enjoyed a lot.
EDIT: Yeah I hope to post here more now that I have some free time.
That's what I like about heavy metal, you have so many interpretations of the genre and each countries output adds more to the catalog of (mostly) fantastic music. As far as the crop of NWOBHM influenced heavy metal music that came from America goes, Crystal Logic by Manilla Road perfectly captures what made the movement special. Songs like "Feeling Free Again"and "Necropolis" have some pop flares that give the album a tinge of accessibility, while not losing much of the "underground" sound Manilla Road tries so hard to preserve. On the flip side, a song like "The Veils of Negative Existence" captures that proto-doom metal feel bands like Black Sabbath or Pentagram were doing ten years earlier. "Dreams of Eschaton/Epilogue" is so prog rock influenced it wouldn't out of place on an album like A Farewell to Kings. Crystal Logic is a mixed bag (not in a bad way), much like the entire NWOBHM movement.
For reference, Crystal Logic was released in 1983. Now, on the other end of the spectrum... Creatures of the Night by KISS (released in 1982) is one of the most god-awful, pathetic cash-ins I have EVER seen KISS make. Let that statement sink in. Hot off the prog rock epic masterpiece Music From "The Elder", (you should be ashamed to call yourself a prog rock fan if you don't have this success in your collection) KISS was in a musical dilemma. They couldn't just release the same album every year any more. Those days were over. The KISS name was becoming a joke (if it wasn't already is was now) and KISS needed to act fast. KISS decided to cash in on whatever musical scene was getting the most attention at the time (unfortunately it wasn't disco). I can only imagine what they were thinking when they recorded this album: "We need gallops! We need a murky production and songs about killing people! Before long, they won't be able to tell us apart from those Iron Maiden clowns!". Creatures of the Night is a horrible cash-in on an otherwise decent movement. If you need to listen to this album, I'm not gonna be the one to stop you. Aside from it being flat, emotionless and devoid of any musical sense... Some songs do benefit from from having a catchy chorus or a nice bass line.
Now there is a difference between cashing in on something and adapting. Some bands are so good and have their music down to a formula that could release the same album every year and still sell and still sound good (damn you Motörhead). Let's face it, if you're gonna be a successful heavy metal band, your going to have to have a sound that progresses from album to album. Motörhead has been releasing the same album for awhile now, but even their sound changes slightly with each release. Does Another Perfect Day sound exactly like Iron Fist? Not all that much, Another Perfect Day is more of a refined effort. It's more polished. But back on to the topic of adapting your sound, two albums come to mind when I think of band's adapting to the times. Judas Priest's 1990 effort Painkiller and Overkill's 2010 success Ironbound. Since Painkiller and its influences are already fairly well known I'll mainly stick to talking about Ironbound. Being a thrash metal band in the 21st century is a piece of cake. Being a thrash metal band that is still offering substantial thrash that brings something new to the table is a tad harder. Since 2000's Bloodletting was so good and was marketed as Overkill's return to tr00 thrash metal (spoiler: there was still groove metal present), Overkill did not feel it was necessary to evolve their sound as much as their previous effort's did. Overkill's Ironbound changed that. Here we find a Overkill that yearns to out-class their peers and prove they go neck-in-neck with metal's more "contemporary" sub-genres (Metalcore, Post-Hardcore, Deathcore, Groove Metal). That's adapting. Cashing in on something is when you want to make a quick buck or two on gimmicks and fluff.
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