No music sounds angrier than thrash metal. And Christ knows there’s plenty to be angry about right now.
Eradikated understand this. Their 2023 debut, Descendants, was nominated for a Swedish Grammis in the Best Hard Rock/Metal category, and Wiring Of Violence arrives as its follow-up with the air of four men who have spent the intervening years becoming even more pissed off.
Frankly, that’s exactly what you want.
The 52-second “And On The Economy” welcomes you into the maelstrom before “British Petroleum” offers two minutes and 38 seconds of classic, old-school thrash bile. No messing around, no unnecessary diversions. Just speed, anger and riffs.
“Mortality”, somehow, sounds even more furious. There is something wonderfully pure about Eradikated’s approach. Elvin Landaeus Csizmadia spits the words, Ragnar Östberg provides the lead guitar fireworks, while the rhythm section of bassist Erland Östberg and drummer Calle Frogner Moberg ensures the whole thing careers forward without ever falling apart.
“Again I Rise” sees the riffs slash and the backing vocals add to the overall sense of violence. “Who am I to set you free?” sings Csizmadia, and there is a streak of nihilism running right through Wiring Of Violence. This is a record concerned with war, inequality, corporate greed and the poisonous figures who seek power, all of it turned into just over half an hour of controlled fury. Those themes are central to the band’s own description of the album, while its songs take aim at everything from oil-company power to war and human suffering.
“Culling” underlines the point. Bodies are in ruins while the riff simply bludgeons.
Then there’s “Tsar”. Everything here seems to move at a million miles an hour, and pleasingly Eradikated appear completely unbothered by notions of adding a bit of this-core or that-core to make themselves fashionable. It’s thrash metal. They like thrash metal. You like thrash metal. Everyone knows where they stand.
Even “Precipice”, which at just over four minutes is practically prog by the standards of this record, never loses its sense of menace. It deals with the horror of war and loss of life, but the music itself does not wallow. It attacks.
The title track is built around Csizmadia’s knack for spitting the words out as though they are pure bile, while you suspect Ragnar Östberg enjoyed the opportunity to shred. “Confession – Obsession” gives Erland Östberg’s bass a chance to step into the spotlight, anchoring everything while the guitars do their worst.
“Ashes” closes the record proper, and the speed of this stuff is genuinely astonishing. Yet there is something darker here too, something almost evil lurking beneath the riffs. The 36-second “And Cats!” then provides the brief outro because, presumably, after spending an album contemplating the collapse of civilisation, sometimes you just need cats.
And really, don’t overthink any of this.
Wiring Of Violence is exactly what you think it is: a load of thrash metal fans making superb thrash metal. Fast, vicious, politically charged and played with total conviction.
Sometimes that’s more than enough.
RATING 8/10
