Flashback CD Review #118 - Nihilist - Call Down The Thunder

This review was originally written for the Rock Is Life.com Reviews In Brief section back 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 strangely didn't care for the overall vocal performance on the song "Hungry For Blood", I thought Tipton was quite good delivering the song's 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 lyric combined with the delivery to sound fresh rather than dated.

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

The best song on the album for me was "American Plague" The track finds the band pounding out a thrashing attack on the current state of affairs in the U.S. The lyrics include 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 really sure what I would think of the band despite having heard a couple of songs during their 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.

Rating:

3 1/2 out of 5 stars

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Permalink Reply by Scott on April 23, 2015 at 12:46pm

Never heard of them and just reading your review tells me their not on my radar screen for a reason and then the clip you posted confirms that! Still cool to read about bands I've never heard of and also to actually hear them.

Keep up the good work!