- Country: USA
- Style: Thrash metal
- Label: Napalm Records
- Release date: 31 March 2017
No warm-up, no intro tape. “Silhouettes” kicks the door in straight away, and the idea behind it is grim enough to match the riffs: John Kevill built the song around the human shadows burned into walls at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From there Woe to the Vanquished barely lets up. The title track and “Remain Violent” are pure whiplash, tremolo runs and frantic drum fills stacked on top of each other, and Kevill sounds like he’s been gargling shrapnel.
What pushes the record past “another solid thrash album” is the ambition at the end. “When the Guns Fell Silent” runs past the eleven-minute mark and actually earns it, moving from a slow, mournful build into galloping mid-section riffs and a finale that hits hard in the emotional sense, not just the physical one. “Shellfire” and “Descending Blade” keep the middle sharp, and the production has real bite without going sterile. Modern thrash rarely sounds this hungry.
Best tracks:
Silhouettes
Remain Violent
Shellfire
When the Guns Fell Silent
Author’s rating: 8.3/10
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