Flashback CD Review #114 - Nihilist - Call Down The Thunder

This review was originally written for the Reviews in Brief section of Rock Is Life.com in 2006.

Nihilist
Call Down The Thunder
Nihilist Metal Recordings - 2006
http://www.nihilistmetal.com

THE VERDICT

The Carlsbad, California power metal trio play a relentless brand of aggressive heavy metal with attacking guitars and a real screamer in singer/bassist Loren Tipton.

While I didn't care for the vocal performance on the song "Hungry For Blood", I thought Tipton was quite good delivering the lyrics at a machine gun clip. What made it even better is that the lyrics are actually quite good. Instead of treading the same old ground, the lyrics combined with a delivery that sounded fresh rather than dated.

There's a pretty solid cover of the Judas Priest song "Freewheel Burning", showing the description of their sound being Slayer meets Judas Priest is more than hype.

The best song on the album for me was "American Plague". The track finds the band just pounding out a thrashing attack on the current state of affairs in the U.S. The lyrics included a great turn of phrase with the line "Political correction spreading infection...the American plague."

In the interest of full disclosure, I actually won this CD during a chat the band was doing on an online radio station appearance. I wasn't sure what I would think of the band despite having heard a couple of tracks during the interview.

While the band isn't signed to a label (they released this album themselves), if they can turn out more material as strong as this debut it won't be long before we start hearing some major hype about Nihilist.

The album is available for purchase via CD Baby.com http://www.cdbaby.com

RATING: 3 1/2 out of 5

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Permalink Reply by RJhog (Admin) on April 12, 2014 at 5:10pm

Interesting review TR. I wonder where they got the design for the "s" in the logo?

I checked out American Plague, it's not terrible but not something that makes me want this. The vocalist sounds a bit like Sam Kinison to me, I'm not sure that's a compliment.