Thrash metal is at its best, it seems to me, when it channels its anger at something. Anything, it doesn’t matter what. But it needs a focus to be truly great.
Havok, since 2009, have been one of the bands that you watched, waiting for them to do something laser guided. 2017’s “Conformicide” was that record. It was brilliant. My review of it, concluded like this: “…..this one is their finest work by quite some way and is the perfect thrash metal record for 2017.”
The thing is, its 2020 now, and “V” is a superior record in every way.
2020 is basically the year that said: “ok you thought 2019 was shit, hold my beer”, and as such there is a lot for a politically aware band like this to sink their teeth into. But, just as unlimited funds doesn’t always get you a good football team, then you need the skill to make it happen. Havok are that band.
There’s been a subtle change in lyrical content this time. Back in the last decade it was about challenging those in power. This time its about understanding how that power is used on us. More than anything, though, it is just brilliant thrash metal. The way the guitars slash, as David Sanchez and Reece Scruggs hone their craft and have become one of the finest double acts around, the rhythms, the melodies even, everything is good as it can be.
That applies to Sanchez too. He spits the lyrics here, with a real intent, but unlike the last Warbringer record, say, everything here is accessible, even if it should send shivers to the very soul of the targets.
“Fear Campaign” is more a blitzkrieg than a war of attrition. “It’s easy to control someone who’s scared, put a gun against their head and start barking commands”, is a hell of an opening line, and merely one of many that this wonderful, and wonderfully thought-provoking collection has.
“Betrayed By Technology” with its disorientating riffery, takes things a little darker, as Producer Mark Lewis (famed for his work with the likes of Cannibal Corpse) pulls something out of each man here. He also mastered the album and, trust me, it sounds like a million dollars.
You can pick any song, really and find something from the very top draw. “Ritual Of The Mind” is slower, but no less powerful. “They want a war on drugs,” offers Sanchez, “but not the ones they sell, cos they’re making too much money”, and they follow that with the riffing masterclass of “Interface With the Intimate” – a word here for the drums of Pete Webber. Mighty throughout, but especially so on this track.
The speed – meant both literally and metaphorically – of these songs is never better underlined than on “Phantom Force”, under three minutes (and remember “Reign In Blood” was less than half an hour long) and a real maelstrom of confusion. “Cosmetic Surgery” is no less ready to fight all-comers, and the gang vocals here really add a punch.
There are two longer, rather more involved, cuts here too. The first of these, “Panpsychism” builds incredibly skilfully, while the other “Don’t Do It” is almost dystopian in the way it articulates the foreboding atmosphere it creates and the barren landscape it somehow evokes.
If those show a band that grows with each release, and now has the confidence to realise its ambition, then the one that sandwiches them, shows a band who knows the past too. If it is noticeable that Havok are one of the few modern thrash bands who want to take things forward, then “Merchants Of Death” owes its debt to early Megadeth, right down to the bass of Brandon Bruce. It predicts “a global scale holocaust” in its lyrics too, which may be strangely prescient.
Just after they put their last album out, I reviewed a Havok gig and said about them. “It is bands like [Havok] that carry the beating heart of the old genre into the future.” With “V” I’d argue that is even more true now than it was then. But this is not some young band anymore, either. This is a band that came of age a few years ago, but that are now – along with Testament, perhaps – the standard bearers for the whole damn sound.
Rating 9.5/10
