Despite their once classic heritage, Metal Blade has released a lot more shitty records over the years than they have good ones. As a result, a number of great bands got pushed aside while the label ran around trying to promote the hell out of its top sellers in order to cover their asses for having signed so much utter garbage. One of those great bands was Epidemic, whose third and final full-length, "Exit Paradise" (1994), is an absolutely crushing slab of fury that was, in some ways, ahead of its time considering the path to reborn success that extreme music has taken in the 11 years since its release.
Formed in the late-80's, Epidemic hailed from San Francisco, and of course that region's legacy of completely and utterly classic thrash metal litters the band's otherwise death metal oriented heaviness and vocal approach. I've actually never been able to track down their debut full-length (which was apparently their 1989 demo properly pressed up on vinyl), but from that point on they seemed to slow things down just a smidge more with each release, ending up at a pretty even blend of speedy death/thrash and absolutely destructive rhythmic grooves on "Exit Paradise". Honestly, the slower portions of this record are quite akin to the dominant form of metalcore that was prevalent throughout the 90's, and I fucking love that shit. Just check out the intro to "Void", the lead track, for a sick example of precisely what an oppressively heavy mosh break should sound like. The recording on this fucker is seriously heavy as hell, and even their unlisted take on Ozzy's "Over the Mountain" sounds totally vicious!
Epidemic "Void">
Epidemic "Deaden">
Epidemic "Exit Paradise">
Since these guys were pretty underappreciated in their day, you can grab their Metal Blade output all over the place for fair prices, so... if you enjoy the above tracks, have at it. I've yet to play this disc for anyone that I thought would like it and have them prove me wrong, so... hopefully most of you will be into it.
Comments
This is some sick ass stuff. I love it.
8.22.2005 | By Anonymous
Andrew, what happened to the numbered rating system?
8.22.2005 | By jesse
This shit fuckin moves!! Good one Andrew, need some more obscure chugga chugga in my collection!!!
And to carry on from what Jesse said, what the hell has happened to the ratings???
8.22.2005 | By xBenx
Nice. I’d only heard their debut (don’t have it though), which actually was sort of “Thrash Core” sounding stuff from what I can remember. It was definitely their demo recording, though, I know that much. I totally overlooked this and their other full length, maybe I’ll have to grab those one day.
Funny, but I’ve never seen anyone point out the fact that this vocalist sounds almost exactly like Stacy Anderson from Hallows Eve, just with more of a Death Metal growl mixed in there. It’s almost eerie at times.
8.22.2005 | By Scott
I disabled the ratings to experiment and see if anyone cares. So far less than 10 people have said anything. People have been focusing too much on the numbers for awhile now, so… I’m seeing if this helps or hurts before I decide what to do. I could argue both for and against them, it’s a tough call…
8.22.2005 | By Andrew Aversionline
Holy sweet tap dancing Jesus! Good Shit! I’m seriously impressed! I’ve been buying a lot of cds lately (most of which are hardcore/metalcore) and these guys totally blow away a lot of these new bands outta the freakin water! Good looking out.
8.22.2005 | By Anonymous
VERY good stuff! Reminds me of Obituary a lot.
8.23.2005 | By mike
Andrew, I see that their previous album, ‘The Decameron,’ is kicking around for quite cheap, is that similar to the material here??
8.23.2005 | By xBenx
“Decameron” isn’t quite as strong, but I own it and it is worth average used prices in my opinion. It’s not as focused around the crushing midpaced stuff, so that one has more of the crunchy death/thrash influences at work…
8.23.2005 | By Andrew Aversionline
Hot damn, last night I was going through a bunch of tapes that a friend dropped off the other day, and “Decameron” is in there as well as the debut, “The Truth of What Will Be”. That 1st one is really primitive and Thrashy as I recalled (though the bad dub might have something to do with the quality), and 2 of those songs made it onto “Decameron”. Homeboy’s voice was less powerful on both of them as well (and less like Anderson as I mentioned above). Still, I’m really liking “Decameron” - at times it comes off as a mix of early Sepultura and Dark Angel.
Anyway - thanks for getting me back in touch with this band!
8.23.2005 | By Scott
This shits cool man.
8.24.2005 | By jigs
Delicous slab
8.25.2005 | By MaXXX Thrash
Erik Moggridge (guitar) plays in Old Grandad now…a “bearded drug metal band” mainstay of the Bay Area metal scene for years now. Maybe check them out,too. A little different than this, but still a raging band nonetheless.
8.27.2005 | By Dirty Jase
I purposely avoided metal blade albums back in the day because the signal/noise ratio was just waaaay too low.
Thanks for doing all the hard work for me I should have done 10 years ago, picking out the good shit!
9.3.2005 | By Anonymous