CD review TRAITOR "Venomizer"

(8/10) You could get the impression that Balingen, the city in the Southwest of Germany, gets more and more the new epicenter of metal.

The Bang Your Head festival, which is very well established in the meantime, is taking place there year by year and now it's also bands from there that starts to claim more spotlight.

Traitor is calling the city of Balingen their hometown and they began a journey to make the world aware of their music. True, this sounds maybe a bit too dramatic; so let's take it one size smaller.

Traitor started in 2009 and they released their debut called "Thrash Command" in 2012. Three years later the Swabian four-piece has the next strike out in the record shops.

"Venomizer" is the 'name of the game' that comes with twelve straight-forward thrash anthems. The joy of those tunes is that they are really powerful and raw. Traitor doesn't give too much focus on high complexity; they just shoot heavy riffs out of the hips.

This leads to thrash metal the oldschool way. Bands like the early Kreator came to my mind, but also Sodom is one of the band I had to think about when I heard the album. There are no bells and whistles. It's guitar, bass, drums and vocals - puristic as thrash metal needs to be.

"Venomizer" is a cool thrash album that wins you over by the authenticity and intensity. Good stuff.

(8/10)

Tracklist

1. Chernobyl (Intro)
2. Reactor IV
3. Torturize
4. Toxic Death
5. Lords of Lust
6. Venomizer
7. Teutonic Storm
8. War, Death & Terror
9. Chemical Violator
10. Hell Hammer
11. Executioner
12. Hexenmeister

Label: Violent Creek

Genre: Thrash Metal

Release Date EU: November 13th, 2015