German thrash band Pissdolls has changed its name to Skeleton Pit and their new album ‘Chaos at the Mosh-Reactor’ contains 4 tracks from the predecessor’s final EP ‘Drink Fast or Die’. So while the trio have been together for 10 years, this incarnation has only been calling itself Skeleton Pit for year now. What’s clearly apparent is like fellow Germans Tankard, they have a fascination with alcohol and metal, and I guess what some may call a juvenile sense of humour. But then again I doubt they take themselves too seriously with stage names like: Doyle Fascinator (Dominik Spranz) – Bass; Lizzard Chandler (Julian Brenner) – Drums and Patrick Options (Patrick Bauer) – Guitars, Vocals.
I suppose that putting the fun back into moshing isn’t really a bad thing and opening song “Hit in the Pit” quickly whips things up into a frenzy of popping slap bass, manic guitar riffs and high speed drumming over the very 80’s style raspy thrash screams.
What can be great about thrash bands can also be their downfall sometimes and that would be finding a very narrow sound and sticking to it. I’m not saying that they sound formulaic at all but “Spreading the Virus” and “Nuclear Thrash Mutants” contains all the required staples. Zombies, mutants, breaks to mosh to and breakneck drumming fills to bang your head to.
The next 3 songs: “Target for Tonight”, “Drink Fast or Die” and “Milling Drilling Killing” are fundamentally about the same thing. Going out, listening to metal, getting drunk and laid. Not much more to it than that really. OK, I think they may have had fighting in there too.
Back to the other thrash staple, horror, and “Terror Tentacle” covers that one, cos I’m not even going to venture into the possibility of hentai here.
The fighting I mentioned earlier is clearly referred to in “Instant Asshole” and “Iron Fist Punch Attack” with the latter being the slowest song on the album and by that I just mean it’s not racing at full speed for 2 minutes.
“Tits To Die For” is rather self-explanatory really and a rather vivacious number at that. And while the whole objectification of women in metal is still rather contentious and not everything done in good fun is always in good taste, I’ll leave that for you to work out the morality of it all, but as long as you understand the difference between fact and fantasy I’m sure you’ll be okay.
Now that I’ve come off my high horse, I enjoyed the whole tongue in cheek nature or their silly antics and rather happy sounding thrash tunes.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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