Malicious Death
...From Above

June 2010
Released: 2010, Disentertainment
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Thrash is back – and so it´s the Finnish old-school thrash farts Malicious Death with their 3rd full-length studio album, titled …FROM ABOVE, which they recorded over a year ago actually. The band has been around 8 years, kicking our fancy and fragile butts with their uncompromising, vintage-tinged old-school thrash that has always leaned - more or less, toward early Slayers, Whiplashs, Kreators, Razors, Voi Vods and the like. On second thought, keeping it old-school sounding through all the years, is quite a respectable achievement alone already I think, without even trying to make it more up-to-date sounding - just like so many bands of the same ink have resorted to doing.



…FROM ABOVE blasts away 9 tracks in circa 35 minutes, proving these 4 thrash lads´ faithfulness and true dedication to the 80s spirit and mentality when it comes to both thrash as well as some hardcore (“No Justice” reeks of a pretty strong HC-vibe ála Discharge and The Exploited). Malicious Death´s thrashes their hearts and balls out viciously and violently on their 3rd stormer , keeping basically pedal-to-the-metal – and offering their thrash nearly as 100% pure as it can be offered in the first place, spicing it up with a couple of kinda surprising elements here and there that adds a little bit extra to their mindlessly raging thrash assaults (check out for example, a saxophone(?) part in “Blasphemy”, starting from 1:59 mark. Didn´t see this coming to be honest). Also, any fan of the Canadian sci-fi mongers Voïvod can surely notice Malicious Death´s concealed perversion to get tangled in a certain type of ´Voïvod-ism´. When the title track “…From Above” kicks in, one is about to get a wide grin spread all over her/his face due to sheer Voïvod worship this particular song in question offers to our listening pleasure.



All in all, Malicious Death´s 3rd full-grown baby thrash monster named …FROM ABOVE, comes in furiously, begging for no mercy and storming like a starving beast – and a good production on this recording naturally helps them to reach some extra pairs of ears to make people curious enough to check it out. That´s what this record should do to them anyway if their hunger just can be satisfied by a slap of aggressive and well thought out old-school thrash extravaganza. …FROM ABOVE should meet these people´s expectations pretty effortlessly, I guess.