‘Story Of Our Life’ is the début offering by the 5-year-old German trash band from Mannheim, with album art, which tells an exacting story from purchasing a first thrash album to listening to it in a poster bedecked room. Sure, their sound harks of the 80’s, but it’s fun and frivolous, and sometimes levity is required when listening to music.
Opening track “Bleeding Red” takes about 5s to get going and then drummer Axel Görg doesn’t relent on his battery, forcing Matthias Ruoff’s guitars to keep pace as they work their way through the song.
Next up we have the rather rapid “Got Scared?” where Christian Müller sounds like he’s going to be out of breath if the song went on any longer at that speed. Good thing it’s the shortest track on the album.
Christian’s vocals are slightly lower and more gruff on “Gas Food Murder”, possibly because the song is a little slower, but subsequently giving it a heavier tone.
The guitar lead on “Streets Of Blood” is razor sharp, as is Tim Scholl’s precision note picking on his bass.
The title track, “Story Of Our Life”, has a guitar battle between Matthias Ruoff and Kai ‘Dr. Stahlenmosh’ Stahlenberg which concludes with no losers, as we’re all victors in rock ‘n’ roll.
“Sleep Work Eat” is the longest song on the album, and contains a clever drum pattern that Axel plays, keeping the mid-tempoed song interesting.
If having nightmares on Elm Street are your thing, then “Dream On” is certainly for you, complete with a German version of the nursery rhyme from the “cinematic masterpiece”.
The following four songs are taken from their 2014 demo ‘It’s Aliiiive!’ and have album producer Kai Stahlenberg on drums. The first thing I noticed is the songs are far more raw with no holds barred and full steam ahead, like “Against” just ploughs along without changing tack, as can usually happens when a band’s finding their feet. While “Coming Home” is slightly steadier but with a very Nuclear Assault-like scream for the chorus, and a great guitar lead. Then you have “Screaming” plodding along nicely with some opening chromatics that become chunkier riffs as the pace increases.
They wrap up the album with the rather fun and funky “Dr. Frankenmosh”, which is bouncier than it is fast, but would still most definitely get a pit going.
Sure, they might be 30 years late to the party, but that doesn’t mean they can’t kick up a storm.
(7/10 Marco Gaminara)
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